I moved to Australia after saving up for six months after years of loving Home and Away

A woman has revealed how she moved to Australia after years of loving Home and Away - having saved up for just six months.

Colleen Deere, 35, from Carlow in Ireland, had a job in a bank in Kildare but after spending six months saving up, she flew to Perth in June 2015 initially with a working holiday visa and says she fell in love with the place straight away.

She met her now-fiancee, Tom McParland, 39, from Merseyside, while they were both working on a vineyard and living in the same hostel in Margaret River. The pair have been together for eight years and currently live in a 750 Australian dollars-a-week two-bedroom apartment in Sydney with their one-year-old son, Cove.

Colleen has received sponsorship from her employers and said she was “over the moon” when they told her, because “it meant I had a way to stay in Australia”. Colleen and Tom earned Australian citizenship in December 2023 and Cove automatically received it after being born in the country. 

Colleen, a team leader at a recruitment agency, said: “I was always interested in Australia - I think watching a lot of Home and Away episodes had something to do with it. We just absolutely love it here - the weather, the opportunities, the fact you meet people from all walks of life. It’s just amazing.”