scissors

Opinions please, where do you think is the best place to take a 16yr old girl to live the gold coast her 1st chioce or bayside,i think more our chioce,i value your honest opinion.is there plenty for a teenager to do in both areas,near a station would be good in case hubby has to commute to work.We dont want anywhere to quiet we do like somwhere a bit lively, but not too noisy all of the time.

ant ideas welcome.tracey.

Jonahs_mummy

Gold Coast - there is a station at Robina that is a stop for the main line to Brisbane. A suburb like Ashmore, Robina, Moledinar, Labrador, Carrarra would be good. He could leave the car at Robina to travel on the train to work..? Also these suburbs are far enough away, but also near enough to Surfers for shopping & nightllife.

I could give you my brothers email addy if you wanted so you could get his impressions of growing up on the Gold Coast for your daughter if you like..?

worzel

Hi. We have a similar choice to make but for us it is Adelaide versus Melbourne. Adelaide is a lot cheaper, commutes will be shorter, Sam has an uncle there who could help us settle in and we know the Glenelg / Brighton area quite well. About 5 days ago we had just about agreed on Adelaide then I had a browse around the Adelaidebrits website and got thinking maybe it was a bit too quiet.

So we changed our mind to Melbourne. There will be more jobs there and they will pay more. There is a Rugby League team at national level, and the F1 GP in the city plus Motogp / World Superbikes at Philip Island. They also have the Comedy festival. But I have spent today looking at property in the Melbourne area and it is so much more expensive and all looks a lot smaller / less attractive than most things I have seen in Adelaide. So now I am back to square one. Aaargh!

At the end of the day you cannot have the best of both worlds. I only go to Birmingham about once a year and it is only 25 miles away so I am probably kidding myself if I think I am going to become a Melbourne socialite. While I fancy re-inventing myself (and I will a bit) what I really like doing is spending time with my family and that can be at the local park or even in the back garden. So maybe we are back to Adelaide. Does that help you? (Out of interest I have posted a question on the Britvics (suburbs FAQ) website today about Bayside so watch out for any answers). Now I am off to think about whether I should be thinking about the Gold Coast / Brisbane areas and whether I ought to have those as options too now you have sown the seed in my mind. Aaargh!!!

Kelli28

hi tracey not visited any of the areas myself but from research we have chosen bayside we thought gold coast isint to far to go for the day to visit wetnwild or whatever i have heard it takes about 40mins to drive from bayside so it could be a long commute to brisbane on the train from gold coast also (just a thought) it could be more difficult to make long term friends as there is so many people just visiting the area ? proberbly better to visit both areas when you get there

worzel

Visiting the Gold Coast from Bayside for the day? There must be more than one Bayside. I was talking about the one in Melbourne because I thought I read somewhere about Tracy deciding between Brisbane and Melbourne.

heading downunder 2002

Hi Tracey,

Well you couldn't really have picked two more different areas. The Gold Coast is a very lively area being one of the main holiday areas in Oz, but friends who lived there said that they found it hard to make long term friends as they found the area very transient.

We lived in Bayside, Ormiston to be precise, there is a train station at Cleveland which takes you into the city but some friends of ours who moved there with two daughters aged 16 & 18 did comment on the fact that the area wasn't lively enough for them, especially them coming from Newcastle where they had a very busy social life.

It really is personal choice, perhaps you should wait and then make your decision once there.

Susan

debsy

Tracey
Maybe you should book some holiday accommodation on the Gold Coast for a couple of weeks and then you can travel up to Brissy on the train.

Send Gazza2222 a pm he has a teenage daughter and he lives on the Gold Coast.

scissors

Just kicked kerry off the computer,WOW what a response, thanks guys,for all your help.We really like the sound of bayside,but im a bit worried that it will be too quiet for kerry,she has set her heart on the gold coast,and of course we want to keep her happy other wise shes gonna want to come home,and of course as we no longer have to worry about young children we like a bit of life as well.I think its different with young children they are happy with a bucket and spade anywhere really but a teenager needs to be aloud to be a teenager, having said that im a bit worried about some of the posts that ive read about drugs.this is why im trying to get a clearer picture of areas from talking to you guys,its the sort of thing you cant find out by surfing the net and i dont think we would find out enough just spending a couple of weeks in a hotel for a holiday.We ve searched places a lot on the net but they dont talk about plces and thing to do for a teenager,and of course drink and drugs,i know they are everywhere but im sure that some places are worse than others and im sure you can understand that we want to steer clear of tha worse places.

tracey.

scissors

Hi again, thanks for your advice on areas,they sound like the kind of place we re looking for, if your brother wouldnt mind it would be great to have his email address,thanks.How are you getting on, did you get your problem sorted out hun.

tracey.

scissors

Hi worzel, sorry if ive confused you,ive now changed my message,when we first joined the forum we hadnt decided whether we wanted to go melbourne or brisbane, we have now decided on brisbane but bayside is half way between the gold coast and the sunshine coast, sounds great doesnt it.
i know what you mean about wanting to reinvent yourself, we dont want to be doing the same sort of things that we do in england we want to totally different.We want some night life but to be able to get away from the hustle and bustle if we want to,ahh you better come to brisbane we can all party togeverrr.If the jobs expo is anything to go by the bars will never get rid of us,what about htis xmas meet then are you still up for it,how have you got on with your tra?

tracey.

MrsDagboy

Tracey, if you want pubs & clubs on every corner & flashy neon glitz then Gold Coast will suit you. Dont pick bayside if you want raging nightlife & being able to get a banana split at 2am - although it has alot of nice restaurants & cafes, has lots of community & family events & has alot of great facilities, it is, essentially, a suburban area.

If you dont want to be confronted with drugs & alcohol abuse (Gold Coast is one of the drug capitals of Australia), overwhelmed by teenagers & young people doing pretty much their own thing & an extremely transient population (& all the problems that entails) which swells by 2 or 3 times for about 3 months of the year, then I would avoid the Gold Coast as well.

Difficult I know, but as someone else said, you cant have it both ways unfortunately.

scissors

hi mrs dagboy, i quess what we really want is something in between,im going to have to look into some of the areas between bayside and the gold coast.

Am i asking too much?

tracey.

ABCDiamond

There IS more than one

Having been reading about Melbournes "Bayside" recently, I've been wondering if confusion between the two may exist, then I saw your first post in this thread.

Brisbanes "Bayside" area is commonly known as the area consisting of Redlandshire, SE of Brisbane, and a few other suburbs further into Brisbane, but still on the bay. Our local paper is The "Bayside Bulletin"

I can't help with ideas regarding a 16 year old, but Brisbane nightlife is not that far away from the Brisbane Bayside I live close to being the furthest out, and we can drive to the city in about 45-50 minutes, even in peak times.
And, as has been said, the train does run from Cleveland, and takes about 1 hour.

MrsDagboy

Tracey, I dont know, all I know is that I wouldnt live on the Gold Coast if you paid me (not even lots & lots of money! ) but then I dont have a 16 year old and im sure there are people who think the same about the bayside area. I guess it comes down to expectations, especially your daughters, as I said, if she wants glitz & glam, has a dream of being out every night partying, being able to shop in a million designer, surfwear & tourist shops & surfing every day after school then bayside is going to be a bit of a let down to say the least!

If however she would be happy with interesting things to do on weekends, sporting clubs & other extracurricular activities & classes (sounds dodgy LOL, but dont know how else to explain it) then she would probably be happy here.

As ABC mentioned, its only a 30-45 min drive into Brisbane CBD from this area & theres also a reliable train service if you need nightlife. I doubt that you would be living right in the tourist strip on the GC, so you'd have to travel to the nightlife down there anyway.

As for areas between GC & bayside, if you mean that are on/near the water & may fit your criteria - there arent any, sorry. Theres really only a small corridor of housing that runs close to the GC freeway & they are even more bereft of nightlife than bayside - think a dozen corner shops . You may be better off considering the Sunshine Coast if you dont think bayside will suit (although that has many of the same problems as GC, just not as glitzy)

debsy

Tracey
I would check out the suburbs on the Gold Coast carefully as some of them are really nice residential areas. However, there are also areas where you might not want to live so I would not make a decision until you actually arrive in Australia.

It is easy to get around so you can decide when you arrive.