Cairns or Townsville to live and work?

cairns to live but i'm biased and for work it really depends on what you do there is a lot of building work due to start with a new "town " being built so lots of tradies work will be available. lots of engineers jobs available.

Try looking at http://www.alljobs.com.au/ and put cairns in the keyword search and it will bring up whats available

good luck

thanks for reply.
which is bigger and has more going on especially for children?

I don't live there, but I can say that Townsville is bigger. My observation is that Cairns is very much a tourist town, whereas Townsville is really the business centre of far north Queensland. Which has more for children I can't say, but my suspicion is that Townsville is probably large enough and diverse enough for you to find most ordinary activities.

Both are wet and very humid in the "wet season" (i.e. the southern summer).

Lush & green or Mt Isa by the sea

Tough call that one

WW

I just spent a small amount of time working in Townsville. It is a mining and armed forces town with a massive number of pubs and plenty of restaurants which are OK. Tourism is minimal. I cannot say I would be in a rush to move up there. It depends on what activities you are after.

Having been to both but living in Cairns for 10 months now I would be biased to Cairns..but I guess it also depends what work you do. Cairns is tourist based but not purely so..I think everywhere is feeling the recession at the moment. Townsville is more industrial than Cairns and is a good sized town, but Cairns is much greener and lush...Townsville a lot drier and wet season n ot as wet as Cairns..but I havn't found the first summer here that bad and winter is perfect.

Cairns has plenty of free stuff for kids, huge free lagoon on the esplanade, kids play water parks, skate park etc plus all the Northern Beaches and schools sound pretty good.

theres plenty about Cairns and Townsville on here, you may find my link..5 months in Cairns and no intentions of going back..plenty of photos on there.

Do your research and if you can ty to visit both first.

Good luck
Liz

I think Townsville might be the more practical choice but Cairns is a great choice too. It is just so beautiful and lush around there I would try to live there instead if I could.

They are both very diffierent places in the same part of the world. My advice would be to visit and get a feel of them. They are 4hrs away in the car and it's a nice drive.

Townsville rainfall totals this wet are the highest in NQ. Exception rather than the rule though.

If you want my honest opinion, Carins has a nice nicer feel but lacks the substance of Townsville. Could always go to Innisfail I suppose (½ way) No don't!

I could live in both but only live in one

I don't know Townsville well so will let the locals tell you about it but like Rab I reckon I could live in either place.

Cairns is where I am though and we love this place.
Diversity is the name of the game and unlike many regions of Aus that diversity is within a relatively short distance travel wise.

Great Barrier Reef, beaches, rainforest, cosmopolitan small city, quiet suburbs, shopping centres, lakes, walks, restuarants, nightclubs, immaculate playgrounds........the list goes on, scenery to die for, clubs, indoor & outdoor events, theatre etc, etc.

Quality living in our opinion but work is what supports everything we do so it depends what you do and what you want out of life.

Here's some photos of Cairns
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...light=paradise

Also search the forum for photos of Townsville by DrDan.