About the shops

So we've been shopping around a lot lately, from cars to wall power plug converters. So how different are the Australian shops to the Dutch shops ? Quite different indeed. For general food shopping you have a choice here of two major shops : Either Coles or Woolworths ( Woolies as they call them here ). Woolies and Coles are pretty similar in setup, choice and quality. In fact you could probably walk into a shop blindfolded and not be able to say if you were in a Coles or a Woolies if not for all the advertising they do in the shops. The shops are all air conditioned to perfection ( somehow the Australians have mastered the art of cooling and conditioning air without it being noticeable ) so you won't get either too hot or too cold in them. The shops are a good size, they all seem to have a minimum size of about 4 times the size of an average Dutch supermarket. The choice is plentiful : From Danish cheeses to German beers, they will have it all. Want some goat's milk feta cheese , no problem. Need some Veil Schnitzels, they got that too. Another thing that amazed me is that everything is fresh here. The Australians take great pride in the quality of what they sell, and they will feel personally offended and ashamed if you would ever find anything in their shops that is even close to the expiry date. Now we know for a fact that in the Dutch shops this ain't exactly the same , they try and fool you, trick you, into putting that one rotting apple or overdate bread in your trolley. If you forget just one time to check the expiry on the food in The Netherlands, then you'll probably end up buying something that is already over date and you'll have to throw it out the moment you get home and unpack the food : It's shameful.

Australian shops are nothing like that : They want to sell you good food for a fair price. For instance, they will have a well sized bread department in the Coles. There will be two sides in the bread department, one side which reads "New freshbaked today" and the other reading "one day old". You will usually pay a bit more for the freshbaked breads, like 40 cents or something ( on a 2 dollar loaf ). But they actually do give you the choice. Battlers ( families who struggle financially ) will go to the 1day old bread, and people who can afford the freshbaked will go to the freshbaked part. Then , at night, the freshbaked bread moves to the 1day old section, and the 1day old gets thrown out ( maybe fed to the sheep, who knows ). The 1day old breads are fresher than the "fresh baked" breads in The Netherlands by the way, just to give you an idea of the freshness of the bread. Usually ( depending on the heat outside and where and how you keep your bread ) the breads here will last about a week.

The choice of meat is abundant : About 50 meters of meat exposed in all it's splendor. You can get every kind of meat you can think of, and some that you never thought of. That's just the meat. The chook section ( chicken ) is about the same and has all the chickens , every part of the chicken, and every marinade you fancy. If you ask the shopkeepers which is the best meat for the barbie, they'll always answer "All of it is good, mate !" so that doesn't really help, you'll just have to find out by trial and error. ( tip : Don't buy the bitter cucumbers ( a 'special kind of cucumber', they're horrible ! However they have the normal cucumbers too which really taste good ) They got 2-3 different kinds of cucumbers here, never saw em in Europe. Then ofcourse you got a Deli section of about the same size which includes all the 'ready made' meats and foods and sauces.

In general , you'll have plenty of choice whatever you're looking for. For instance, you can buy salt, natural salt, big grain salt, small grain salt, herby salt, spicery salt, even salt mixed with pepper !

The veggies are fresh and HUGE, some are priced by the piece, some by the kilo. Plenty of choice here too and the taste is so much more "full" than the Dutch veggies : You can literally taste the healthy food , rather than the watery dull vegetables in The Netherlands. I even started eating some tomatoes, they just taste so different around here !

The prices of food are about the same as in The Netherlands. Some meat is very expensive, some is very cheap, it all depends which meat you would like. But while the price is about the same, the quality is a lot higher, it's in a different league all together. The shopping trolleys don't have the little dongles on them where you have to put 1 euro in to release them from their chained captivity, they are being picked up by shop staff in the parking lots on a very regular interval. Usually people will put them back in the trolley station, some people who are in a hurry ( not a lot of those around here ) will leave their trolleys in the parking lot but then people who arrive will take those to the shop and use them, or they will be picked up by the shop staff.

Paying is rather easy too. Obviously you can get a Woolies or a Coles membership card, they will automatically make you member of the Qantas frequent flyer group, which in theory should allow you to fly around a bit more. The paying is done in either one of two ways : You can do it yourself or you can go to one of the aisles where a lady will pack your goods in little plastic bags for you so you can easily put them in your trolley and car. The do-it-yourself automated check-out option we haven't tried yet, but it's very popular , 50% of the people use it. Especially if you have 2-3 things , it will go very fast, you just scan-and-bleep then put your bank card in the machine and walk out of the shop, literally in seconds.
We don't have our Commonwealth Bank cards yet, so we have to use the cash option and go through the lady at the checkout. There is hardly any waiting, if ever. I think the most we have waited at a checkout is about 20 seconds. Australians don't like to wait, that's for sure : When things take more than a few minutes, they will get really agitated and complain about the huge delays and queues ( which, after being in Europe for so long sounds really ridiculous but I heard that you get used to it rather fast ).

One thing that we noticed is the size of the coins here ! A 50 cent coin will weigh about 2 kilo's ( ok, not really but they're really big and thick ) so your wallet will soon be full. We empty our wallet every evening just because the coins are so big and don't fit in it. I'll try and make a picture and upload it on here if I have time. The real size of a coin is about an 4 centimeters and about 4 millimeters thick, which for one coin is certainly respectable. They are mostly going cashless here , like in most parts of the world using debit and credit cards for the most part.

The parking all around the Sunshine coast is free, we haven't seen paid parkings anywhere yet, and the parking lots are all made for big SUVs so you'll have plenty of spare room if you drive anything Europe-sized ( think of USA a bit ).

The shops are usually located in big shopping centres which have plentiful parking spaces. The centres will usually have every type of shop you need : Electronics, electrics, travel agencies, banks, centrelink / medicare etc , sport shops, clothing shops, bottlo's ( bottle shops ) etc. When you go shopping you will always go to the big shopping centres ( and some of them are REALLY big like the Sunshine Plaza in Maroochydore which is almost as big as a small village in Europe ) They are almost always covered and well shaded with trees all around and parks and plenty of food and restaurant shops. It's a real treat not having to hike around town to find a particular shop, just go to a shopping mall and you'll get everything you need.

One noticeable thing in shops : The staff is really helpful and friendly. It sounds hard to believe but when we got here we were surprised by the friendliness of the people in general, and staff too. They take their time to help you, they are courteous and open. We might just have been lucky , but what a difference to what we were used to ! Obviously here in Queensland, the customer is still king. ( in The Netherlands the king has been dethroned for quite a while now )

Yes, we like the Australian shops.