lulabelle

Can you help me ? I would like to live in the rural sydney area, for three months to escape our dark and grey winter here in england.

I would love to find a smallish lively scenic area, so I could paint, with lots of bird life, a beach or pool to swim in.

Any advice would really be appreciated
Big thankyous

NickyC

Well, rural doesn't usually equate to lively and if you drive away from Sydney in any direction for an hour - you find that you're still in Sydney.

If you want coastal, I'd recommend northern Central Coast area. It's more than an hour north, but anywhere closer is suburbs. Going south it's even worse, Sydney suburbs then National Park (no houses) then you're almost straight into Wollongong.

The Kiama area (south of Wollongong) is seriously scenic and a nice small town with things going on but over two hours drive away.

If you don't necessarily want coastal, you could try the Hawkesbury River area. There are some lovely small places on the river - you'd get scenic there but definitely not lively. Or the Blue Mountains would be an good alternative. Quite a bit happening, arty-crafty, heaps of birds but no beaches.

scutterUK

Just don't try to go east.

bondipom

Another suggestion is the blue mountains or in the foothills. A few people at work live at Springwood. You can get a train into the CBD from there but driving would be horrible. www.131500.com.au for public transport and www.whereis.com.au for directions. Whereis driving times and reality are 2 different matters. As nickyc points out Sydney burbs and country are not lively.

soapy©

i was in a place called appin last weekend and the countryside was really nice. thats about an hours drive. well it was from the airport (without speeding)

ABCDiamond

You do sound like a Blue Mountains type of person But it's more than an hours drive to Sydney CBD.

http://www.bluemts.com.au/categories.asp?ID=223
http://www.wilmap.com.au/magazine/blue_mountains.html
http://www.bluemountains.org.au/index.shtml

ABCDiamond

Appin in an hour ? That's close to Picton, which I remember as being very nice.

Of course, they have built the M5 since I used to nip down to Picton.

http://www.walkabout.com.au/locations/NSWAppin.shtml

soapy©

yeh Abc it was about an hour and that was me taking myy time and getting lost once lol

bondipom

I sometimes drive to Chipping Norton for work. The traffic coming into the city on the m5 was always at a standstill. Going against the traffic was great. In the evening the traffic going back out of the city was at a standstill.

soapy©

sounds just like the uk

soapy©

the next day we took the back road back to Campbelltown from Appin. this was a great drive and found some lovely countryside. it could be scotland if it had some more trees and wasnt so browny orange
its a great drive though and a nice place to live if u dont mind everyone knowing everything about u lol

Tass

Can't believe you came all the way out to our neck of the woods and never even stopped for a chat ! ( & bar-b-q ! )
We live not far from Campbelltown and your visit was mentioned in the local paper ! LOL !!!

soapy©

aw sorry tass, if i had rmbred u lived there i would have popped in. your making me feel bad now lol
next time im out, we will visit. we were in Campbelltown 2 weeks before that too

soapy