Hi Terry
Welcome to Expat Forum
We emigrated to Australia from the UK 14 months ago so hopefully I'll be able to help you out a fair bit
Your questions arent silly at all - I remember asking very similar questions before our move! Heres the answers
1. All your electrical goods will work fine over here but you'll need travel adaptors. The cheapest place I found to get these was Ebay UK. Its also a good idea to bring UK Multi Plug extension cables with you too because then you only need to use 1 travel plug.
2. I used a doctor pretty much as soon as we arrived. What do you mean about the 2 years? Are you coming on a temporary Visa - if thats the case you can still use the docs - whether you choose to insure or not is entirely up to you - we didnt. If you come here as permanent residents then you have full access to medicare as soon as you arrive which is very much like the NHS.
3. We didnt bring pets but I know that they can be very expensive. Do a quick google search on it and you'll find lots of info. The dog will be fine (assuming he passes the relevant vet checks), not sure about the snake & lizard but the Hamster is def a no no - they're band from the country for some reason?
4. Cant really think of anything I wish I brought with me........apart from all my favourite shops of course!!
I miss NEXT & Tesco sooooo much!
5. Regrets.....none
6. Costs........now theres a good one. They seem to add up ridiculously when you first arrive. School fees (if you're on temp visa, rental bond (4 weeks rent), fees for setting up new gas, elec & phone accounts, rego for car, stamp duty for car etc etc etc
HTH
Rach xxxx