semray

Hi,

My wife and I are moving out from the UK to take up jobs at Caboolture Hospital next year for 12 months. We wanted to know of ideal places to live and commute from in the surrounding areas. Any advice on this would be most appreciated.

jad n rich

Caboolture is not very nice to live but great for jobs.

From there the Sunshine coast is only a 40 minute drive even in peak, ( the traffic jams are the other way, into brisbane). You are in the enviable position of being able to live on the coast with jobs in a short commute. Pick your beach or bushland basically. Southern end, Caloundra is nice beaches, Buderim would be my pick, mountains, rainforest and under 10 mins to surf beaches.

semray

Hi,

Thanks for the info. We were thinking of somewhere just outside of Brisbane as we'd want to be nearer to a major city to explore sights, restaurants, museums etc during our time off.

KJCherokee

The train runs from Caboolture into Brisbane roughly every half hour and take just over an hour to reach Central (45 mins if you get an express).

jad n rich

Northern suburbs of brisbane would consist of the new housing estate types like north lakes, mango hill. Large new housing estates, houses much the same, close to your neighbour. Some like them as they all have school, supermarket etc.

Older housing areas like braken ridge, houses can be cheaper, but all of brisbane is going pretty nuts, melb and sydney buyers trying to get in at half the price of their hometowns.

Bayside of redcliffe, woody point etc, mental scramble to buy houses under 500k, but plenty of stuff to rent, not a surf beach, easy access to Caboolture, half hour to city on weekend compared to hour to city on weekend from sunshine coast.

scotvness

A rather sweeping statement – your opinion of course. Caboolture town centre perhaps! – but then again it depends on individual taste, Caboolture-shire on the other hand offers a wide variety of lifestyle choice from town house to estate to acreage living. Caboolture-shire has a lot to offer; I would wait until you get here before making a decision. The thought of working away from the city and having (the possibility of) next to no commute, but then choosing to live near the city and giving an unnecessary commute, for me, would be a strange choice.

semray

Many thanks for all your suggestions. I will look into the areas mentioned.

Graham and Maria

Theres a few good options around Caboulture and if you want near Brissy then you will be travelling the opposite direction to the congestion.
North Lakes is popular for Expats and has great amenities.

Caboolture has an undesirable reputation but outside of the inner city theres some really nice places, we have friends on acreage 10minutes down the D'Aguilar which is very nice.

Another option you might want to explore is Bribie island.

Good luck

FluffyTheCampfireSlayer2

IMHO, there are some fantastic acreage properties around Caboolture. Trust me when I say this, you would not want to be commuting anywhere near to Brisbane Mon-Fri!!!!
Another option is the Redcliffe Peninsula. We lived here and absolutely loved it!!

joeyballantyne

semray - yep take a drive around Caboolture to see for yourself, there's some very decent places to live, in and near Cabo - Narangba Kallangur Petrie etc, or cross the highway and check out the peninsua i.e. redcliffe, clontarf etc. The other option as mentioned is sunny coast, friends of mine live on the coast and commute - 45 mins drive - to Caboolture hospital. I live in Caloundra and commute - easy peasy and Caloundra's a great place to live.

deebs73

I live in Caloundra and commute - easy peasy and Caloundra's a great place to live.

Hi Joey,

I currently live in Cornwall and have a chance to move to Brisbane for a project. We are looking at Caloundra having been on holiday there when we lived in Sydney some 4 years ago. I have three children, 8, 6 and 5 and we are looking at Pelican Waters to live and I assume the children would go to the private school there which looked lovely when we visited.

I too love football and still play 'all age' here in the UK but used to play for Northbridge Over 35's when we lived in Sydney. My two sons are both very good at football and one is currently in a Development squad here. Is there something similar in Caloundra, ie links with the professional clubs?

My biggest concern is the commute which you say is easy. I see there are plans to upgrade the roads and also to put in a new road to South Caloundra, is this still likely to happen? how long does it currently take you? Some have quoted over 2 hours and say it is a nightmare, others an hour and say it is easy. I appreciate it is traffic dependent etc but what is the average? My project will be in George Street, is it easier to drive or catch the train?

Any advice you can give would be greatly received, maybe PM me a response.

Many thanks

David.

joeyballantyne

hi deebs

some comments for you below...

i love cornwall btw, fave place in uk is st ives, and thats why i love living in caloundra so much - similar in that there are great different beaches offering different things, ... with warmer weather here - just before i came to oz i had a great job which involved travelling around cornwall and devon, i lived in totnes at the time - totnes is a bit like Maleny on the sunshine coast - except people wear shoes...and clothes, in totnes most of the time.

I have three children, 8, 6 and 5 and we are looking at Pelican Waters to live and I assume the children would go to the private school there which looked lovely when we visited.
the school is a great little school, when i say little i mean some classes have only a dozen - if that - kids in them - its great if you can afford it so just check the prices and away you go
pelican is a good suburb, shops parks etc, good bike rides, but the further you go in the farther away it seems from everything e.g. if you go up to the new developments or up to near the pelican resort/golf club it seems like walking to the shops is like two days by horse! but its a 2 minute car drive so do that, however if you're at the canals end (closer to golden beach) you might feel that things are more accessible; all individual choice really

I too love football and still play 'all age' here in the UK but used to play for Northbridge Over 35's when we lived in Sydney. My two sons are both very good at football and one is currently in a Development squad here. Is there something similar in Caloundra, ie links with the professional clubs?
simple answer no sorry. as much as aust is growing as a football/soccer country you can't really get into development squads unless you have money to pay for them i.e. travel, kits, competitions etc, there are no professional teams to help subsidise this or to take you in their academy for free, it just doesnt happen here - so you will get into a development squad and you will be asked to travel/fly at your own cost, so lets say sunny coast or brissie dev squad then playing a comp in rockhampton or mackay (still in qld), you have to pay all the costs/airfares. so until football becomes much bigger and professional clubs develop and then grow academies that outreach and fund the recruitment of young players, i'm afraid it's slow going here. there is a chance - the biggest professional club here is brisbane roar, to get into their 'academy' it is possible to be spotted and recruited if you play in the state league for someone like sunshine coast fire, or brisbane strikers - but as you can imagine there's a lot of competition for very few spots, very different from back home where every league club and lots of non-league clubs have opportunities for academy type development. local clubs all over caloundra and sunny coast that link to the fire and brisbane teams so if your lads are good enough they'll be sure to be spotted eventually and you are very welcome to join the local 35s comps, there's caloundra fc, and caloundra churches over 35s if you want to play with the old fellas, there's a great 6-a-side comp in buderim every wed nite - just bring your boots i'll be your agent...

My biggest concern is the commute which you say is easy. I see there are plans to upgrade the roads and also to put in a new road to South Caloundra, is this still likely to happen? how long does it currently take you? Some have quoted over 2 hours and say it is a nightmare, others an hour and say it is easy. I appreciate it is traffic dependent etc but what is the average? My project will be in George Street, is it easier to drive or catch the train?
caloundra to brissie - two days by horse again. actually if you need to be in bris between 7.30am and 9.30am it will probably take you two hours to drive, if you get in before 7.30 maybe 7.15, or after 9.30 maybe closer to 10am, it will take 1 hour 30 mins approx, ... if there are no incidents/accidents/d**kheads on the highway - if you're calling the shots on clocking in and out dont start work till 10 and finish at 3pm! lots of people will also 'live' in bris during the week and commute back up the coast at weekends - the drive is a bugger i reckon, and ageing - so make sure you moisturise

hope all that helps, let me know how you go - cheers! J

joeyballantyne

there's more... george street is bang in the middle of bris - if you have to park there for work make sure the company is paying or it might cost you anything around $35 to $45 per hour .... yes per hour! cos thats how parking brissie rolls

deebs73

That is brilliant information, thankyou so much for taking the time to reply.

Thanks for the honest experience on the commute, just as I had feared although didn't want to believe. Is the new road going to happen? Will this reduce the commute significantly? Estimate to reduce the commute by 45 minutes sounds ambitious. The parking sounds a nightmare and a significant cost on the commuting cost as well.

David.

joeyballantyne

hey david - yes the road is going ahead - they have been working hard on it, not sure exact completion but should be in next couple of years - that will be a new development called caloundra south with thousands of people moving in. i think it will reduce the commute by about 15 mins as at the moment by the time you drive past caloundra south/pelican waters on the highway it then takes 15 mins to get there. i dont know where they got 45 mins from??? even the long way round only takes max 20 mins to get to the caloundra south turnoff? yes defo check the parking you have for your work in bris - or buy regular lotto tickets