cazza36

Morning,

We are waiting for our visa to come through, and are hopefully going to Canberra, any information on living there etc

Many thanks

Caroline

quoll

It's a pretty nice place although there will be someone along shortly who will tell you it is as boring as b*tsh*t. It isnt really. It has all the benefits of a big city without any of the cruddy stuff and all the benefits of a big country town without being merely a country town - excellent restaurants, reasonable shopping centres and you can see the bush from pretty much anywhere in town.

We have excellent facilities, the educations system is OK and if you dont like the gov schools then there is a parallel Catholic system. Plenty of community activity, especially for kids with music, arts, drama, sports etc. One of the few places to have 4 defined seasons and now that we are out of drought it is looking a whole lot better than it has been.

Mostly a public service town, the suburbs are quite expensive for rent and purchase and most families are dual income to cope with the mortgage. Public transport is pretty good and you rarely see a traffic jam unless there has been an accident on the Parkway.

Lots of suburbs to choose from, some better than others of course (avoid Charnwood, Richardson and lower Narrabundah) Best place to check out property is www.allhomes.com.au. We are 2 hours from some stunning beaches and the same distance from some good winter snow for skiing and boarding.

You could do a whole lot worse

cazza36

thank you, that was a great help!! I am sure we will love x

cazza36

thank you for the comments, I am sure we will love it, we both have jobs to go too, and have a house to rent in Forde, any other comments will be welcome! Caroline

quoll

Blimey you have jobs and a rental, I'd say you were half way to becoming Canberrans before you start - so many migrants come with neither and both are very difficult to find. Forde is a new build area and no school at the moment but if that doesnt bother you then it isnt that far from the centre of town and even though it looks like a building site at the moment it has more potential for growing green than do some of the other new areas like Harrison. Transport from Forde could be a bit tricky, probably going to need two cars unless you do everything together.

cazza36

Thank you again for your comments, just found out this morning our Visa has been accepted!! so My husband and I will hopefully be over Jan 7th!! so excited, we have no children so the school is not a problem, we do like a quite area to live so maybe Forde is the answer? Is there many places to go to meet people, we are both in our 40"s Caroline

louH

I'm gonna be the one to say it - its as boring as B#% %*(t (sorry).

I don't have kids and was constantly being told the best way to meet people was via kids schools etc (really helpful comment, let me go pick up one from Bunnings).

Stuck it for 3 years and felt the life blood had been sucked out of me by the end of that time.

We lived in Belco and I can honestly say that no one in the neighborhood spoke to me until we got a dog. I went to the same gym in Canberra for 18 months - no one spoke to me. I joined a sporting group people would talk to you if you made a huge effort. I would feel socially inept but this kind of treatment was specific only to Canberra and is a sorry tale I have heard over and over from people who move there (Aussies and Brits) realise they have made a huge mistake and get the hell out.

Good luck but keep your expectations low and you won't be disappointed.

shorrock

I think the comments from Quoll and LouH are very fair of Canberra. I spent 5 years working there. I flew in each week from Sydney and rented an appartment there, so I kinda had the best of both worlds.

Canberra is a strange place. If you are born there and grew up with the schools you will have loads of friends and be very active. All the local people I knew who grew up in Canberra loved the place and was very active. Those people that moved there found it very hard to make friends. Some after a while really enjoyed living in Canberra and still do. Other didn't and moved.

Making friends in Canberra will be hard and you will need to make a massive effort. It took me 6 months to score a few friends in Canberra. But once I did it was plain sailing from there.

Also understand the demographics of Canberra. The majority (99.99999999%) of people living there are office workers and typically work for the gov. All are highly educated (HighSchool+). So unless you fit into these demographics and share similiar interests it could be very hard to make friends.

If you have kids or planning on having kids soon, then I would say you will really enjoy Canberra. If you don't have kids, not planning on having any or your kids are teenagers (12+) then I will say you could struggle.

I would move back to Canberra in a heartbeat, but once my daughter reaches 12, I'd probably want to leave. There really isn't much for teens to do in Canberra.

Schools are good, rent is expensive. Cafes / food places can be hard to find the good ones. You need to ask the locals where they are. Summers hot, winters cold and flys lots of flys in summer for about 2-3 weeks. Roads are good. Rush hours last about 45 minutes and most commutes don't take longer than 30 min even in the rush hour

cazza36

Thank you for all of your replies!!, it good to hear both sides of the story,
well I guess we will find out soon ( as we fly out JAN 7th ). We may have the choice to work in Perth at a later date with the company.

sasbear

Hi Caroline,

I moved to Canberra and then moved on but Canberra is fantastic and I still visit regularly.
Paulry has just located there so give him a PM on here and there is a social expat network there - I used to organise meets but there are others that I can put you in touch with if you like? The are a good bunch of people and are very helpful to new comers

Good luck!!

quoll

It certainly doesnt have the same sense of community that I would like but I think that is true of Australian suburbs as a whole - the smaller towns have much more of that feel to them but who wants to live in Delegate (substitute small town name of your choice) where the big event is the Friday meat raffle in the pub. Suburbs are always going to be somewhat grey and dormitory style no matter where they are. Coming from village life in UK, I can say that this is nothing like that at all!!!!!

Friendships here are very fluid and I have certainly found them to be more workplace related than anything else - of course, as soon as the workplace dynamics change then the friendships seem to drift off. I dont have that many good friends here even after 3 decades but I still have a good half dozen back in UK which were forged during times of developmental stress (uni, first work etc) and they have stood the test of time. This is a place for the self contained and self sufficient I agree. I always put my lack of friends down to my own self containment and self sufficiency - I am not a party animal at all and if that is what I need to do to get new friends here then I cant be bothered (how many barbies are enough???). Neighbours tend to keep themselves to themselves - we have one family who have lived in the street for nearly 60 years and know everyone and everything but the newcomers (like ourselves, only 27 years) tend to do their own thing - probably worse in the new suburbs unless you have a really outgoing couple of families who organize everything.

I think there is still a load of stuff for kids to do until they leave school and, even then, there is a lot of activity around the universities these days so there is quite a bit going on but like most Aussie kids finishing school or uni they want to go overseas for the adventure - some come back but many dont.

moocow

going to live in Forde are we? oh very nice. I have just moved to Canberra and only slightly downmarket to you in Gunghalin. I think its a very nice place and am getting on fine. less rif raff in gunghalin that in some of the older suburbs. not rally an easy bike ride to the city unless you are a typical canberra person who seems to like these excessive things however bike on a bus is everywhere so you can at least look like you made the effort.

cazza36

Hi there,
well that sounds good to me, we are going to be working in Gunghalin! Dont really do bike rides, but we can start, is there a local bus into town?

quoll

Oh well, if you are working in Gungahlin you are home and hosed. There are buses everywhere but the outer suburbs arent as well serviced as the inner ones this is the Forde bus http://www.action.act.gov.au/Routes_101001/route_59.htm

fish.01

Where do they hide all the tradies...Queanbeyan?