Melbourne Reccie
Jan 2nd 2007, 2:30 pm
#1
is the donut hole
Thread Starter
Joined: May 2005
Location: London
Posts: 217
Melbourne Reccie
Finally got around to doing a reccie report on my stay in Melbourne. Me, my wife and two kids (2 and 4) stayed from the 26 Nov to 18 Dec. I’m not going to do a day-by-day report as, frankly, I can’t remember what days I did what. So instead I’ll break it down into topics, starting with the city itself. Please excuse the waffling.
(Note that the usual caveats apply: these are MY opinions and generalisations WILL appear)
Melbourne
Not a city for first impressions. If you visit the city for less than a week I think you’d probably come away with a bad impression. As a previous poster said, Melbourne is Sydney’s ugly sister. There are no striking landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House. The buildings are drab and painted grey or brown and fairly non-descript. The overhead tramlines make the streets look messy. There’s the usual graffiti and rubbish but not as much rubbish as London. And if you top it off with a bad weather spell, you might actually come away thinking Melbourne is a dump. But under the surface, it has lots to offer, some of which I cover below.
Child amenities
In brief: Top marks
From picnic grounds with BBQs, to the beaches and restaurants, it’s a winner.
Both the Science Museum and the Melbourne are fantastic for young kids. Much better than anything I’ve seen. Anyone coming from London as a teenager or older would be disappointed though as they clearly don’t have the world-class attractions of a London museum.
Aquatic centres, though, are certainly top class and fab for families. The local Doncaster one had 6 indoor lanes, 1 learner’s pool, 1 toddler pool, 6 outdoors lanes, a diving pool, a water slide, crèche, flying fox and a rope challenge course ($13 for a family of four). When we were there, a constant stream of school children (primary and secondary) arrived for classes that included dealing with seaweed. We also tried the Monash aquatic centre ($16) and it had a 40-meter wave pool that can be used for surf training. Fantastic.
The Ian Potter garden in the Botanic gardens is also great for kids.
There’s also a free newspaper called Melbourne Child that is dedicated to a child’s life in Melbourne (including teens). It’s full of interesting articles, a calendar of events and, strangely, about 150 ads from children’s party providers
.
Arts and culture
Yes, it does exist. Operas, plays, musicals all happen here but not at London level. Mathew Bourne’s Swan Lake is appearing next year. Free open-air movies and drive-ins are a nice touch. There are galleries and exhibitions and I’d probably say that it’s the art capital of Australia but feel free to disagree. Newspapers are limited. You have the local “leader” series that is about the same as the local “guardian” series in London. Then you have the tabloid like “Herald Sun” and the more serious “The Age”.
TV is poor in general with mostly American shows with lots of ads in the American style. By that I mean many breaks with one just before the end of the programme or the credits. However, there were some surprises. SBS had hours of 20-minute news slots in various languages (Japanese, Hong Kong, Chinese, Filipino, Italian, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Greek, Arabic, Indonesian). Also good films and documentaries. We didn’t have cable so can’t comment on that.
Radio is more upbeat and more American than UK stuff. I was amused by some of the old ‘classics’ played that I remembered from NZ radio but haven’t heard in the UK. I generally liked it.
The cinema we went to at Eastlands was very spacious with comfy seats compared to the Wimbledon or Kingston ones.
Food
V. good. Eating out is good but beware any slimmers that the portions are large, especially the cakes (and there are loads all over the place). Takeaways are good (ever been to a chippy where you have a choice of battered, crumbed, fried, baked or grilled?). Love the juice bars, too.
Supermarket fruit and veg, while not cheap, are tastier than London IMO. Seafood is more abundant. The seafood counters in London seem like an afterthought in comparison. Meat is cheap and with varieties that are hard to get in UK supermarkets like venison and veal. I even liked the snags. However, we missed the selection of “healthier” biscuits, especially the “Hovis” ones. Talking Hovis, bread seems more expensive and somehow “airy” and less substantial. Also, although we didn’t try any, ready meals look poor. You can’t touch an M&S ready meal. But, according to Jamie Oliver, we should be cooking our own food anyway, right?
Coffee was great everywhere, even when I’d normally expect polystyrene cups of instant I got proper cups of ground. Fab. Tea we only had at home and didn’t seem bad to me (but we like weak tea). I liked the chocolate and the Mrs preferred it to the UK stuff.
Public transport
Probably the best city in Oz for public transport but it does vary from suburb to suburb. In Doncaster East its poor with only a bus service. Other suburbs have tram, bus and train, though I’d say a car is still near to essential.
Trains are on a par with London (including delays such as “police called due to an incident”). Trams give the city a European flavour with the ting-ting of their bells and are quite charming (overhead cables aside). They do seem quite dangerous for pedestrians, especially in the Bourke street mall area. Didn’t try a bus, sorry. Various tickets give you 2-hour or all day access to all forms of transport in 1-3 zones (soon to be just consolidated to just 2 zones).
There some free services: There’s a historic (but rattly) city loop tram and a shuttle bus that does and bigger city loop.
Driving:
Cars are big. I’d look at a Mitsubishi Warrior in London and think it ridiculous. In Melbourne it fits in. The roads are big too and laid out in a grid which makes it easy to navigate. Traffic lights have quite long timings between changes but I think it’s because the turns often have a separate set of lights. Roundabouts are rare but look to be something that will become more popular. Angled parking is fantastic. Houses with driveways are a blessing.
Driving is more aggressive in Melbourne but not as bad as I expected. I was let into lanes more than I would be in NZ but less than London. My theory is that aggressive driving is inversely proportional to the number of cars and the width of the roads.
Parking is confusing at first (for example). Wasn’t sure about the signage and got a ticket
. Contrary to opinions I’d received, its not free parking everyway. In fact, we experienced mostly either time-limited free parking or time-limited ticketed parking. It’s a case of local knowledge I think. For example, at Williamstown beach, the local shop owner pointed out that the street just off the ticketed esplanade was free all day. And, yes, it is quite possible to find full car parks.
Environment
In a word: wild
Temperature mostly highs around the mid 20s with cooler mornings but some bumps. An example of a “bump” was when it hit 34 degrees one day. We were in the Science Museum to escape the heat and each time I went out to the car to get something I was like getting blasted by a hair dryer. When we finally left, 30 minutes after the last time I went to the car, the temperature had dropped 15 degrees.
The beaches on the bayside are nice but not Surfers nice (maybe further along the Great Ocean Road is better). Also checked out Williamstown beach once but had bad luck with the weather. It’s the first time I’ve been sandblasted by a warm wind and then faced a sudden cool down around 4pm that cut the visit short.
A couple of days of smoke haze too. While hundreds of thousands of hectares of trees were burning hundreds of kilometres away, we got to enjoy a red sun at the beach.
The continuing drought has left most lawns prickly and yellow. One exception was the botanic gardens but even it looks patchy in places. Stage 3 water restrictions were announced just before we left.
Housing:
Big houses quite often single level. The sort of thing I grew up in and like a lot but the Mrs complains that only having 1 floor wastes space. The kids immediately loved the space and chased each other around the rooms (in contrast, when the arrived back in London, Sophie was constantly bashing things in frustration with her pram trying to take here dolly for a walk). Insulation isn’t fab with single glassing the norm; you’re not protected from the elements like you are in the UK. We needed duvets at night even though it was summer. Personally I feel block the outside world makes for a stuffy house but I guess it’s just what you’re brought up with.
We looked around houses in Mt Eliza, Frankston, Black Rock, Mentone, Aspendale, Sandringham, Hampton, Brighton, Cheltenham, Williamstown, Doncaster and Templestowe. We also drove around suburbs like Camberwell, Canterbury, Surrey Hills and Box Hill. Must be difficult to start on the property ladder earning aussie dollars, though. I’m glad we have London home with equity and a favourable currency exchange rate. Improved home lifestyle is only possible based on this, I think.
If we can afford it, bayside living fairly close to the CBD would by our first choice. I like Mt Eliza but worry about the commute. I might live in London but I’m lucky that I commute out to Kingston rather than into the City so it only 8 minutes on the train. Commuting wise, even Brighton is a step backwards. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but we didn’t like the west side of Melbourne much. Too industrial and even isolated, perhaps?
The village style suburb is something that we’ll probably have to give up. Suburbs in Oz are like the US/NZ. That is, suburbs are for living in, and that’s about it. You go by car to do most anything else. Perhaps the central suburbs are more village-like. Could anyone comment on this?
Employment
I’m in IT at a senior architect/PM level. I had 1 interview and talked to 2 recruitment agents. I should’ve talked to more people but I basically relaxed instead. Talking to the agents left me feeling positive with comments such as “I will bet my house you’d get a job within a month”. Most interesting for me was the attitude of the people I spoke to. They were very keen on helping beyond what was required. For example, I quickly found the job I was interviewed for was too small for me. Not only did they come clean on this and say so, the also said they would talk to contacts in the industry and see if they needed anyone. About 2 weeks later they called to say that they’d talked to the MD and a now looking a putting me in charge of a new start-up project next year (we’ll see how that pans out). One recruitment agent, who are also a consulting firm, offered to provide me with temp work “the next day” with the option of working 4 days to allow for house hunting and with the understanding I could leave when I found something more permanent which they would continue to look out for.
Aussies
Careful here. I’m generalising and expressing my opinion.
Living in the UK for such a long time shows how English are polite/helpful compared to the Aussies. But I’ll qualify this by saying it is quite often, in my experience, forced. You soon learn that they quite often don’t mean it but it’s difficult to detect that. The Aussies mostly make no effort to hide their annoyance (including service workers) but at the same time they are (mostly) genuine when they offer help or a nice to you. I preferred the more ‘direct’ approach but my wife preferred the English effort.
Kids are more up for fun and less surly here from what I have seen. Teens at the beaches were playing football or throwing balls to each other in the waves. I didn’t see many hanging around malls except with parents or on their way home from school. Alex and Sophie seemed to have fun and made friends even though the Aussies seem more ‘robust’ in their play. This can get a bit much as at the botanic gardens a child pushed Alex and he fell onto a volcanic rock and cut his lip. The mother was upset (“Shit, I’m really sorry”). She made the child wait till Alex stopped crying then got him to say sorry before saying that was the end of the outing before taking him home. The next day a boy tried to help Alex open the gate to the toddler’s pool. He yanked it too hard and the gate hit Alex. On the lip
Miscellaneous:
Cockroaches: 1, 2 centimetres long
Flies: Lots in patches, quite sticky but not outback sticky. Much, much worse than the London, somewhat worse than Dunedin, NZ.
Spiders: 1 daddy long legs
Sunburn: None. Not bad for a redhead
Bare feet in malls/supermarkets: None
Asthma/hay fever: none (I usually suffer)
Final thoughts:
I like Melbourne. I also like London. If I were a single 20 something (as I was when I arrived), I’d choose London. I’m a different person now with different priorities who has no family in the UK except a brother who will probably leave soon. I have friends here but not close friends. I have close friends but they aren’t physically close they’re spread across the globe. I think, on balance, with a good job in place in a good location with a smaller mortgage, Melbourne wins out. That’s pretty conditional, eh? Well, that’s because it isn’t a case of “Melbourne is better than London”. It’s just not that simple.
(Note that the usual caveats apply: these are MY opinions and generalisations WILL appear)
Melbourne
Not a city for first impressions. If you visit the city for less than a week I think you’d probably come away with a bad impression. As a previous poster said, Melbourne is Sydney’s ugly sister. There are no striking landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House. The buildings are drab and painted grey or brown and fairly non-descript. The overhead tramlines make the streets look messy. There’s the usual graffiti and rubbish but not as much rubbish as London. And if you top it off with a bad weather spell, you might actually come away thinking Melbourne is a dump. But under the surface, it has lots to offer, some of which I cover below.
Child amenities
In brief: Top marks
From picnic grounds with BBQs, to the beaches and restaurants, it’s a winner.
Both the Science Museum and the Melbourne are fantastic for young kids. Much better than anything I’ve seen. Anyone coming from London as a teenager or older would be disappointed though as they clearly don’t have the world-class attractions of a London museum.
Aquatic centres, though, are certainly top class and fab for families. The local Doncaster one had 6 indoor lanes, 1 learner’s pool, 1 toddler pool, 6 outdoors lanes, a diving pool, a water slide, crèche, flying fox and a rope challenge course ($13 for a family of four). When we were there, a constant stream of school children (primary and secondary) arrived for classes that included dealing with seaweed. We also tried the Monash aquatic centre ($16) and it had a 40-meter wave pool that can be used for surf training. Fantastic.
The Ian Potter garden in the Botanic gardens is also great for kids.
There’s also a free newspaper called Melbourne Child that is dedicated to a child’s life in Melbourne (including teens). It’s full of interesting articles, a calendar of events and, strangely, about 150 ads from children’s party providers
.Arts and culture
Yes, it does exist. Operas, plays, musicals all happen here but not at London level. Mathew Bourne’s Swan Lake is appearing next year. Free open-air movies and drive-ins are a nice touch. There are galleries and exhibitions and I’d probably say that it’s the art capital of Australia but feel free to disagree. Newspapers are limited. You have the local “leader” series that is about the same as the local “guardian” series in London. Then you have the tabloid like “Herald Sun” and the more serious “The Age”.
TV is poor in general with mostly American shows with lots of ads in the American style. By that I mean many breaks with one just before the end of the programme or the credits. However, there were some surprises. SBS had hours of 20-minute news slots in various languages (Japanese, Hong Kong, Chinese, Filipino, Italian, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Greek, Arabic, Indonesian). Also good films and documentaries. We didn’t have cable so can’t comment on that.
Radio is more upbeat and more American than UK stuff. I was amused by some of the old ‘classics’ played that I remembered from NZ radio but haven’t heard in the UK. I generally liked it.
The cinema we went to at Eastlands was very spacious with comfy seats compared to the Wimbledon or Kingston ones.
Food
V. good. Eating out is good but beware any slimmers that the portions are large, especially the cakes (and there are loads all over the place). Takeaways are good (ever been to a chippy where you have a choice of battered, crumbed, fried, baked or grilled?). Love the juice bars, too.
Supermarket fruit and veg, while not cheap, are tastier than London IMO. Seafood is more abundant. The seafood counters in London seem like an afterthought in comparison. Meat is cheap and with varieties that are hard to get in UK supermarkets like venison and veal. I even liked the snags. However, we missed the selection of “healthier” biscuits, especially the “Hovis” ones. Talking Hovis, bread seems more expensive and somehow “airy” and less substantial. Also, although we didn’t try any, ready meals look poor. You can’t touch an M&S ready meal. But, according to Jamie Oliver, we should be cooking our own food anyway, right?
Coffee was great everywhere, even when I’d normally expect polystyrene cups of instant I got proper cups of ground. Fab. Tea we only had at home and didn’t seem bad to me (but we like weak tea). I liked the chocolate and the Mrs preferred it to the UK stuff.
Public transport
Probably the best city in Oz for public transport but it does vary from suburb to suburb. In Doncaster East its poor with only a bus service. Other suburbs have tram, bus and train, though I’d say a car is still near to essential.
Trains are on a par with London (including delays such as “police called due to an incident”). Trams give the city a European flavour with the ting-ting of their bells and are quite charming (overhead cables aside). They do seem quite dangerous for pedestrians, especially in the Bourke street mall area. Didn’t try a bus, sorry. Various tickets give you 2-hour or all day access to all forms of transport in 1-3 zones (soon to be just consolidated to just 2 zones).
There some free services: There’s a historic (but rattly) city loop tram and a shuttle bus that does and bigger city loop.
Driving:
Cars are big. I’d look at a Mitsubishi Warrior in London and think it ridiculous. In Melbourne it fits in. The roads are big too and laid out in a grid which makes it easy to navigate. Traffic lights have quite long timings between changes but I think it’s because the turns often have a separate set of lights. Roundabouts are rare but look to be something that will become more popular. Angled parking is fantastic. Houses with driveways are a blessing.
Driving is more aggressive in Melbourne but not as bad as I expected. I was let into lanes more than I would be in NZ but less than London. My theory is that aggressive driving is inversely proportional to the number of cars and the width of the roads.
Parking is confusing at first (for example). Wasn’t sure about the signage and got a ticket
. Contrary to opinions I’d received, its not free parking everyway. In fact, we experienced mostly either time-limited free parking or time-limited ticketed parking. It’s a case of local knowledge I think. For example, at Williamstown beach, the local shop owner pointed out that the street just off the ticketed esplanade was free all day. And, yes, it is quite possible to find full car parks.Environment
In a word: wild
Temperature mostly highs around the mid 20s with cooler mornings but some bumps. An example of a “bump” was when it hit 34 degrees one day. We were in the Science Museum to escape the heat and each time I went out to the car to get something I was like getting blasted by a hair dryer. When we finally left, 30 minutes after the last time I went to the car, the temperature had dropped 15 degrees.
The beaches on the bayside are nice but not Surfers nice (maybe further along the Great Ocean Road is better). Also checked out Williamstown beach once but had bad luck with the weather. It’s the first time I’ve been sandblasted by a warm wind and then faced a sudden cool down around 4pm that cut the visit short.
A couple of days of smoke haze too. While hundreds of thousands of hectares of trees were burning hundreds of kilometres away, we got to enjoy a red sun at the beach.
The continuing drought has left most lawns prickly and yellow. One exception was the botanic gardens but even it looks patchy in places. Stage 3 water restrictions were announced just before we left.
Housing:
Big houses quite often single level. The sort of thing I grew up in and like a lot but the Mrs complains that only having 1 floor wastes space. The kids immediately loved the space and chased each other around the rooms (in contrast, when the arrived back in London, Sophie was constantly bashing things in frustration with her pram trying to take here dolly for a walk). Insulation isn’t fab with single glassing the norm; you’re not protected from the elements like you are in the UK. We needed duvets at night even though it was summer. Personally I feel block the outside world makes for a stuffy house but I guess it’s just what you’re brought up with.
We looked around houses in Mt Eliza, Frankston, Black Rock, Mentone, Aspendale, Sandringham, Hampton, Brighton, Cheltenham, Williamstown, Doncaster and Templestowe. We also drove around suburbs like Camberwell, Canterbury, Surrey Hills and Box Hill. Must be difficult to start on the property ladder earning aussie dollars, though. I’m glad we have London home with equity and a favourable currency exchange rate. Improved home lifestyle is only possible based on this, I think.
If we can afford it, bayside living fairly close to the CBD would by our first choice. I like Mt Eliza but worry about the commute. I might live in London but I’m lucky that I commute out to Kingston rather than into the City so it only 8 minutes on the train. Commuting wise, even Brighton is a step backwards. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but we didn’t like the west side of Melbourne much. Too industrial and even isolated, perhaps?
The village style suburb is something that we’ll probably have to give up. Suburbs in Oz are like the US/NZ. That is, suburbs are for living in, and that’s about it. You go by car to do most anything else. Perhaps the central suburbs are more village-like. Could anyone comment on this?
Employment
I’m in IT at a senior architect/PM level. I had 1 interview and talked to 2 recruitment agents. I should’ve talked to more people but I basically relaxed instead. Talking to the agents left me feeling positive with comments such as “I will bet my house you’d get a job within a month”. Most interesting for me was the attitude of the people I spoke to. They were very keen on helping beyond what was required. For example, I quickly found the job I was interviewed for was too small for me. Not only did they come clean on this and say so, the also said they would talk to contacts in the industry and see if they needed anyone. About 2 weeks later they called to say that they’d talked to the MD and a now looking a putting me in charge of a new start-up project next year (we’ll see how that pans out). One recruitment agent, who are also a consulting firm, offered to provide me with temp work “the next day” with the option of working 4 days to allow for house hunting and with the understanding I could leave when I found something more permanent which they would continue to look out for.
Aussies
Careful here. I’m generalising and expressing my opinion.
Living in the UK for such a long time shows how English are polite/helpful compared to the Aussies. But I’ll qualify this by saying it is quite often, in my experience, forced. You soon learn that they quite often don’t mean it but it’s difficult to detect that. The Aussies mostly make no effort to hide their annoyance (including service workers) but at the same time they are (mostly) genuine when they offer help or a nice to you. I preferred the more ‘direct’ approach but my wife preferred the English effort.
Kids are more up for fun and less surly here from what I have seen. Teens at the beaches were playing football or throwing balls to each other in the waves. I didn’t see many hanging around malls except with parents or on their way home from school. Alex and Sophie seemed to have fun and made friends even though the Aussies seem more ‘robust’ in their play. This can get a bit much as at the botanic gardens a child pushed Alex and he fell onto a volcanic rock and cut his lip. The mother was upset (“Shit, I’m really sorry”). She made the child wait till Alex stopped crying then got him to say sorry before saying that was the end of the outing before taking him home. The next day a boy tried to help Alex open the gate to the toddler’s pool. He yanked it too hard and the gate hit Alex. On the lip
Miscellaneous:
Cockroaches: 1, 2 centimetres long
Flies: Lots in patches, quite sticky but not outback sticky. Much, much worse than the London, somewhat worse than Dunedin, NZ.
Spiders: 1 daddy long legs
Sunburn: None. Not bad for a redhead
Bare feet in malls/supermarkets: None
Asthma/hay fever: none (I usually suffer)
Final thoughts:
I like Melbourne. I also like London. If I were a single 20 something (as I was when I arrived), I’d choose London. I’m a different person now with different priorities who has no family in the UK except a brother who will probably leave soon. I have friends here but not close friends. I have close friends but they aren’t physically close they’re spread across the globe. I think, on balance, with a good job in place in a good location with a smaller mortgage, Melbourne wins out. That’s pretty conditional, eh? Well, that’s because it isn’t a case of “Melbourne is better than London”. It’s just not that simple.
Jan 2nd 2007, 2:44 pm
#2
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Oct 2005
Location: In a house
Posts: 2,590
Re: Melbourne Reccie
But in all honesty would say top end of NSW is a more desirable place to live (if you don't need to work :scared: ) was fantasitc up there, but may get there once we hit retirement
Jan 2nd 2007, 3:25 pm
#4
Account Closed
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 16,652
Re: Melbourne Reccie
thanks for you time in writing that . i enjoyed it alot .
Jan 2nd 2007, 3:46 pm
#5
Victorian Evangelist
Joined: Sep 2005
Location: Melbourne, by the beach, living the dream.
Posts: 7,704
Re: Melbourne Reccie
Cheers mate - interesting to compare it with our reccie which of course overlapped with yours....
Buzzy
Buzzy
Jan 2nd 2007, 3:56 pm
#6
is the donut hole
Thread Starter
Joined: May 2005
Location: London
Posts: 217
Jan 2nd 2007, 4:04 pm
#7
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Sep 2006
Location: 'stralia
Posts: 2,383
Re: Melbourne Reccie
fnord - good read there, thanks. Like the parking sign- some things are the same the world over!
Jan 2nd 2007, 6:57 pm
#8
Banned
Joined: Jan 2006
Location: Godzone, utopia, Paradise Island under the sun.
Posts: 1,177
Re: Melbourne Reccie
As you said , the beaches along the great ocean road are lot better, maybe next time you should try to get out of Melbourne and see the state , maybe Wilson's promontory, the great ocean road, the grampian mountains or snowy mountains.
Jan 2nd 2007, 7:12 pm
#9
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Nov 2004
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 957
Re: Melbourne Reccie
Excellent post! We've been in Melbourne 2 years now and love it!
Jan 2nd 2007, 7:16 pm
#10
Sunny Sydney
Joined: Aug 2005
Location: Sydney
Posts: 6,241
Re: Melbourne Reccie
Thank you so much for writing this, a really good read. Glad you had a great time.
Gill
Gill
Jan 2nd 2007, 11:42 pm
#11
Forum Regular
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 35
Re: Melbourne Reccie
Thanks Fnord
An interesting read, we're off to Melbourne later this year (hubby, son aged 4 daughter aged 11 and me), so posts like this are very helpful
karma sent
ddm
An interesting read, we're off to Melbourne later this year (hubby, son aged 4 daughter aged 11 and me), so posts like this are very helpful
karma sent
ddm
Jan 3rd 2007, 12:57 am
#12
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Oct 2005
Location: Hill overlooking the SE Melbourne suburbs
Posts: 16,622
Re: Melbourne Reccie
Finally got around to doing a reccie report on my stay in Melbourne. Me, my wife and two kids (2 and 4) stayed from the 26 Nov to 18 Dec. I’m not going to do a day-by-day report as, frankly, I can’t remember what days I did what. So instead I’ll break it down into topics, starting with the city itself. Please excuse the waffling.
(Note that the usual caveats apply: these are MY opinions and generalisations WILL appear)
Melbourne
Not a city for first impressions. If you visit the city for less than a week I think you’d probably come away with a bad impression. As a previous poster said, Melbourne is Sydney’s ugly sister. There are no striking landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House. The buildings are drab and painted grey or brown and fairly non-descript. The overhead tramlines make the streets look messy. There’s the usual graffiti and rubbish but not as much rubbish as London. And if you top it off with a bad weather spell, you might actually come away thinking Melbourne is a dump. But under the surface, it has lots to offer, some of which I cover below.
Final thoughts:
I like Melbourne. I also like London. If I were a single 20 something (as I was when I arrived), I’d choose London. I’m a different person now with different priorities who has no family in the UK except a brother who will probably leave soon. I have friends here but not close friends. I have close friends but they aren’t physically close they’re spread across the globe. I think, on balance, with a good job in place in a good location with a smaller mortgage, Melbourne wins out. That’s pretty conditional, eh? Well, that’s because it isn’t a case of “Melbourne is better than London”. It’s just not that simple.
(Note that the usual caveats apply: these are MY opinions and generalisations WILL appear)
Melbourne
Not a city for first impressions. If you visit the city for less than a week I think you’d probably come away with a bad impression. As a previous poster said, Melbourne is Sydney’s ugly sister. There are no striking landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House. The buildings are drab and painted grey or brown and fairly non-descript. The overhead tramlines make the streets look messy. There’s the usual graffiti and rubbish but not as much rubbish as London. And if you top it off with a bad weather spell, you might actually come away thinking Melbourne is a dump. But under the surface, it has lots to offer, some of which I cover below.
Final thoughts:
I like Melbourne. I also like London. If I were a single 20 something (as I was when I arrived), I’d choose London. I’m a different person now with different priorities who has no family in the UK except a brother who will probably leave soon. I have friends here but not close friends. I have close friends but they aren’t physically close they’re spread across the globe. I think, on balance, with a good job in place in a good location with a smaller mortgage, Melbourne wins out. That’s pretty conditional, eh? Well, that’s because it isn’t a case of “Melbourne is better than London”. It’s just not that simple.
My favourite recce report ever I think. I've always said that Melbourne is only nice to the casual observer ON FIRST GLANCE when the sun is out and you know where to go - not just the CBD grid either.
I HATED Melbourne on a visit from my home base in Sydney. The only place I hated. I now live here and you can keep Sydney. Melbourne is 'heaps' more liveable than Sydney. Its like a fine wine - Melbourne grows on you in a way that no other Australian city does and keeps on doing so when others are failing.
There are locales here that are absolutely amazing whether its an inner city cafe lined street or a place in the Dandenongs or Yarra Valley that noone knows about it.
Jan 3rd 2007, 1:04 am
#13
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Oct 2005
Location: Hill overlooking the SE Melbourne suburbs
Posts: 16,622
Re: Melbourne Reccie
We looked around houses in Mt Eliza, Frankston, Black Rock, Mentone, Aspendale, Sandringham, Hampton, Brighton, Cheltenham, Williamstown, Doncaster and Templestowe. We also drove around suburbs like Camberwell, Canterbury, Surrey Hills and Box Hill. Must be difficult to start on the property ladder earning aussie dollars, though. I’m glad we have London home with equity and a favourable currency exchange rate. Improved home lifestyle is only possible based on this, I think.
The village style suburb is something that we’ll probably have to give up. Suburbs in Oz are like the US/NZ. That is, suburbs are for living in, and that’s about it. You go by car to do most anything else. Perhaps the central suburbs are more village-like. Could anyone comment on this?
The outer established suburbs are sort of bland in an American kind of way but do have stacks of infrastructure and often there are secret open spaces and parks off the main thoroughfares -the grid system is very good.
If you don't mind a commute there are villages ala England on the NE, E, and SE edges in the 'Hills'. The N and E bits are better than the SE apart from a few I can name as I live there. But you have to choose with a fair bit of knowledge. Its hard getting a good block cheaply as they are either expensive or acreage, or too touristy, or a bit 'feral' or alternative.
The peninsula is not my area of expertise at all.
Jan 3rd 2007, 6:25 am
#14
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Joined: Sep 2006
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 183
Re: Melbourne Reccie
Thanks for that - interesting and informative read - will definitely check out those aquatic centres.
I think I agree with what you say about Melbourne/London. We lived in London pre kids (well, until my son was one or so) and loved it. We also will love Melbourne (only arrived a month ago) but we have 2 children now and a completely different lifestyle.
I think I agree with what you say about Melbourne/London. We lived in London pre kids (well, until my son was one or so) and loved it. We also will love Melbourne (only arrived a month ago) but we have 2 children now and a completely different lifestyle.
Jan 3rd 2007, 10:11 am
#15
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Joined: Apr 2005
Location: On the edge of the Dandenongs, Melbourne
Posts: 2,387
Re: Melbourne Reccie
If you don't mind a commute there are villages ala England on the NE, E, and SE edges in the 'Hills'. The N and E bits are better than the SE apart from a few I can name as I live there. But you have to choose with a fair bit of knowledge. Its hard getting a good block cheaply as they are either expensive or acreage, or too touristy, or a bit 'feral' or alternative.