hi there girls.
another RAAF wife here!
Alioops - check out the various loans available to service men for your new bedding etc... there's a thing called a chaplain's loann (used to be called anyway) and for $80 they'll give you up to $3200 (i think!) interest free... the repaymnts automatically come out of DH's pay every fortnight.
We used that loan to set up house when we first moved into together as well as for our new $2000 mattress... it just needs to be spent on home stuff that's all and you can take the loan as many times as you like so long as you only have one loan at a time.
As for housing, as what most girls said here - it's hit and miss. But we have found storage to be a BIG issue and a strange obsession by DHA with clover. but they have lifted the standards again and what you should expect is on the DHA website.
i'm born in cairns region and spent many years living in tvle as an adult. Cairns people hate tvle cos "it's really brownsville and too dry and everyone there are bogans. plus everyone KNOWS cairns is the capital of north qld and tvle tries to steal our tourists and our thunder''.
For Tvle people "cairns people think they are all that and they ssoooo stole our Strand idea. they don't even have a proper beach and what's with the mudflats?''
it's like any rivalarly between states/towns/clubs - is based on crazy stuff! lol.
back on topic - Tvle is a great city for its residents & very family friendly. if you have kids, like warm weather and the feel of country towns then you'll probably like tvle. I really enjoyed living there and it's come a LONG way from its Brownsville reputation as a bit backward! IF you are in a DHA place in tvle the chances are you'll be near other defence families... this is usually good. I remember one xmas packing the esky and DH and i went for a neighbourhood walk from Defence home to defence home eventally getting back to our home a litle worse for wear about 4am! heehee. Plus they'll feed your animals when you are away!
have also heard good thngs about darwin and brissy.
We are at Willliamtown now and it's very very different. not social at all and has been very hard to make friends.
defence spouses need to realise that they aren't going to get what they want. so long as you fully accept to live whereever you are told, are pretty postivie and can see the best in situations you'll be fine. I know some other partners who fight it the whole way from posting location, to housing, to posting times etc and they get really frustrated. Personally i just go with the flow, don't really mind where we end up cos i know we'll leave again in a while and have learnt to be self-sufficient. we see it as our way of travelling Oz, just going to take us 20 yrs lol
one other thing, I personally have found SOME (by no means all) partners are extremely cliquey and b**tchy. I've heard it's worse in the army. things like an officer's wife won't talk to an enlisted member's wife and crap like that. Just be ware of it that's all. I didn't come across it until last year (been with DH for 7 yrs) but it was pretty awful up til then every other partner just rocked.
when you get posted and arrive at your destination make sure DCO (the group that supposed to support families) provides you with a welcome pack etc. They are underfunded but do have some good resources IF you know they are there (i only found out bout them 18mths after we got here).
at the end of the day it's what you make of it. good luck and have fun!
ps sory if typing i s rbbish, keyboard playig up..bbbrrhhh
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not sure if that helps and it's only from my limited point of view.
I love Adelaide, DH is not a fan at all.
. We are hoping that within 6-12 months she will no longer be classified as a special needs child. At this stage everything that classifies her as high dependant or special needs is fixable and we are working really hard to correct it before she has more obstacles to cross. We have no idea what intellectual disabilities she may have as she gets older but she seems to be going really well in these areas so I think that she is going to be lucky and it is not going to have to much of an effect on her. So based on that I do not think it will be a problem. 
Now DH's posting has finished and we are moving back to Canberra. I think from now on most of his jobs will be in Canberra and Sydney, so I guess that is a good thing.
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