IMMI Grant Notification

11 hours ago, I was just finishing up a class and dismissing them when my phone chimed, indicating that I had an email. Before I could check though, it chimed several more times in quick succession. I remembered thinking to myself that that couldn't be a good thing.

The first thing I saw once I pulled out the phone was the subject header "Your SkillSelect EOI has been removed".
Right.
Why was it removed?

That was immediately followed up with 4 individual emails addressed to my wife, my kids and I, titled "Immi Grant Notification" - opened up one of the emails just to be certain and it was.
We've been granted visas!
Australia, here we come!

It was kind of surreal because I was reading yesterday about 4 koalas being sent to Singapore and the 4 of us will now be heading in the opposite direction! 

Will we be getting such first class service? Not the eucalyptus though, not our thing :)

Anyway, in the email there was a PDF file with some instructions but basically two things jumped out. The Australian visa is already in effect, I was not to arrive in Australia after 13 April 2020 (visa has a validity of 5 years).

The second thing was that I had to make first entry to Australia before 26 January 2016 and this date is non-negotiable.

Now that it's sunk in, I am definitely looking forward to the move but not without trepidations.

As a reminder to self, application was filed on 11 January 2015 and visa was granted on 13 April 2015.