jayneydiddle

We are thinking of moving to Taree 3 hours north of Sydney and 4 hours south of Brisbane. My sister in laws family lives there and it sounds quite nice.
we have two teenage children and would like to know what its like and if there will be plenty for them to do.

steve`o

we went there for the day whilst on holiday
try
http://www.walkabout.com.au/location...ngs%20to%20see

for further info

arkon

Taree is pants. I live 20 minutes from it and we choose to live near here because Taree and Port Mcq looked on the surface like they were ok and fairly large to provide enough service. Do a search on all my posts and you'll get a flavour of what Taree and Port are like.

dhw210770

Sorry to disappoint you but Taree is 4 hours drives north of Sydney and an 8 hour drive south of Brisbane. Taree is a country town (farming community - beef, dairy etc) and there is not much there to be honest, especially for kids. You will be very hard pressed to get jobs yourselves also.

Taree is also on the main route (Pacific Highway - or Highway 1) for many lorries driving from Sydney to Brisbane vice versa so it gets very busy.

Debs

arkon

I should elaborate a bit:- If your say 50+ years old and have little or no expectations then Taree might be ok, It has a high indigenous population and they do cause a lot of trouble and are quite intimidating in and around the shops. Its inland a bit so the temperatures are normally about 10 degrees hotter than the coast for the same latitude. It has a couple of malls but nothing like a decent one, the locals are content to shop at places like target, big W and Woolworths & Bi-Lo. There are no decent department stores and the nearest myers is probably 3 hours away. There are a couple of good primary schools by Australian standards but no good secondary schools, the nearest half decent secondary schools are at Port Mcq about 45 minutes north, and too far to commute for a school run.
The locals are very friendly but also very red necked and bigoted. Service in the shops is terrible with very few shop assistants being very skilled in their shops. The aesthetics of the town are not bad with a very nice big river running down the side of the town and it is all very clean. There are no job prospects for your kids and they will almost certainly need to move away to get good jobs unless you don’t mind them having some menial low paid job. It has a base hospital but people choose to have their babies etc at Port Mcq.
Taree is too far from Sydney and Brisbane to really commute and your only other real place you can visit it Port and Forster. I’ve probably missed loads out but you get the idea.

In summary looks good on the outside but its like living in an open prison camp.

janiceb

Hi, I have been to Taree a couple of times over the last few years and it is a nice place to live. Not sure about things to do for teenagers but it is quite a central place in NSW and the road network is fine.
Hope this helps!!

NickyC

This is probably the only time I'm ever likely to (even partly) agree with arkon..

I don't think that small, country towns are bad for kids - on the contrary they have a great time particularly if they're sporty. Towns like Taree have a good community feel and obviously a slower pace than the cities. I know a few families who live in towns a similar size to Taree and their kids are all independent, outgoing, confident, well-adjusted people with no educational defects whatever. What they may lose by not having the facilities of a large city nearby, they gain by growing up in a smaller, slower environment.

Where I do agree is that if you want any kind of future for your kids, they will HAVE to leave town when they finish school. There might be a TAFE in Taree but it will be geared towards agricultural/trade training and won't offer the range of courses available in larger centres. The nearest University is likely to be Newcastle. The only businesses in town will be services/shops catering for the local farmers and community so not really a great prospect for a good career.

A country town like Taree is probably great for younger kids and fine if you've grown up there - but I'm not sure that teenagers (depending on age, interests and what they're used to, of course) would necessarily settle down too well.