Our visa timeline

Here is a timeline of how long it took us to get our skilled independent visas.
The actual processing time came to 8 months and 14 days. Start to finish.
The time it has taken us about 2 years.

15 March 2005
We arrived in the UK after our trip around the world that took us 10 months in Australia, 1 month New Zealand and 1 month in the USA.
30 March 2005
Around this time we realized we wanted to go back to Australia and Sydney in particular.
After looking in to the matter we find out to our horror we did not meet the requirements for the visa we are after by just a hair. The Skilled - Independent visa Subclass 136 Caroline meet all the points required 120 is what is needed and I believe she came to 130-135.
The only requirement she didn't meet was that you have to have worked in your field for at least 12 months out of the last 18. And because we just spent 10 months in Australia where Caroline couldn't work....we didn't meet that criteria. You can imagine our disappointment. Such a small detail and the irony.
April 2005
We went to Holland and Caroline meets the rest of her new family. And it is the first time she has visited it.
May 2005
We find a place to live in Witney, Oxfordshire
June 2005
We both find jobs.
7 July 2006
We finally meet all the requirements and send the application in. We had decided to try and do it ourselves rather then go through an agent. The reasoning behind this was, is that you will still have to provide the immigration agent with all the information. Although it was a bit of a struggle Caroline and I managed to fill everything in. (Correctly as we never had to redo anything or provide additional information)
12 July 2006
Application received
10 August 2006
Creditcard debited
12 August 2006
Acknowledgment received
28 October 2006
I took my IELTS test.
I had to take this test to prove my understanding of the English language for the Australian Migration department.
10 November 2006
We sent my IELTS results in.
29 January 2007
We had a Case Officer assigned to us. And he requested for our medicals and my Dutch Police Certificate of good conduct by the 26th of February
14 February 2007
We sent our medicals off.
21 February 2007
We sent in my Dutch Police Certificate

Now we had done everything that needed doing..........and the agonizing wait began.
Every morning first thing Caroline would check her email and every time there wasn't anything we were wishing the day away. Just so we could check her email the following morning.

21 March 2007
We received the email we had been waiting for so long. Our visas granted. That evening we opened the Champagne we saved for this occasion. And later we opened another one, just because.
23 March 2007
We sent our passports in to have our visa put in.