ozbaz

Hi

Does anyone here live 'coastal south or north of Sydney, ie Gosford area or Woolongong?
Have figured a 50-55 km radius around Sydney is acceptable, but easy commuting is a must ( ie not more than 45 minutes to whatever hospital Hubby gets job in)
Springfield near Gosford looks nice, but perhaps not that convenient for work and university?
Oh..of course affordability is concern! Any suggestions as to nice/affordable / near coast/ not-too far away-from Sydney areas?? Not too sleepy either...

Any info and experiences welcome !

Mrs Ozbaz

bourbon-biscuit

I think the commute in from Gosford way can be good in good traffic and a nightmare in peak (so I've been told by locals).

Do you need to commute to Sydney for work?

22B

We live about 35km from Sydney, and it can take my OH an hour plus to get to work by car, or just under an hour by train.

I think you may find the Gosford-Sydney commute to be something of a strain when you have to do it day-in-day-out. (Though lots of people do it.)

Perhaps look on a map at towns/suburbs a little further south that are both coastal and on a train line (because the Friday drive home is ALWAYS a 'mare).

It is very difficult to advise on what is 'nice' or affordable' as everyone's criteria is different. (I think my town is the bees-knees, but some of my BE mates wouldn't touch it, and vice versa.) You are best to visit a handful of areas that meet your geographical criteria and see if they feel right for you.

Good luck.

Olibeneli

Wollongong to Sydney commute in less than 45 mins ?....forget it

Come back in 50 years when they might have put in a fast train or proper motorway.

cocococo

Dear Mrs Ozbaz,

I have lived in Wollongong for 10 years, where I have a house and business. I also have a house in Sydney which I retained and I lived there for nearly 20 years. I was born on the Central Coast. I travel by car and by road around all 3 locations for 40 + years.

Here are the facts:
1. The public transport system in NSW is dreadful. Infrastructure spending was cut for 15 + years, and it has fallen into serious disrepair. This is how NSW paid for the Olympics in 2000 = money was taken from infrastructure, health and education to spend on the Olympics and to make the then Premier and state government look like they were running a surplus budget. We are all paying for this now. Yesterday, statistics were released in NSW showing 1:4 trains were out of service each month and 1;4 train were over 20 years old. New carriages are many years overdue and when they do sometimes arrive, they don't work. No air con operating in an Australian summer is no joke! The old trains [most are more than 20 years old] have no air con fitted anyway. Train travel in NSW is a nasty, nasty business. Train timetables are limited - they do not run overnight for example and crime rates on trains mainly those running outside peak hour times, are through the roof.
2. Of the two train options, the trains between Sydney and Wollongong are a bit better than those between Sydney and Central Coast. Reasons. Central Coast is new housing central, so getting a seat means a scramble and standing for 1.5 hours [especially in non-air con carriage in summer] is awful. Wollongong trains take an hour to an an hour and ten minutes to get to Central Railway station in Sydney, and you are more likely to get a seat as the population pressures are not as great. That is because Wollongong is located on a narrow north south strip of land between the Pacific Ocean and the Illawarra Escarpment, which means it cannot develop new housing a the massive rate occurring on the Central Coast, where flat land is more available and land prices are cheaper.
3. The road system between all is in fact quite good in terms of road surface and quality. That is not the problem. The problem is the time it takes to drive, congestion and paying for all day parking in Sydney itself, which is, if you are lucky, $4 an hour at a parking meter [if you can find one], or $100 a day in a parking station. The Mayor of Sydney is talking about introducing a congestion tax similar to London's as a massive disincentive to stop people bringing their cars into Sydney. Also, the Pacfic Highway which travels north from Sydney to Central Coast [and then all the way to Brisbane] is the major northern highway out of Sydney, so it takes all the heavily laden trucks, holiday makers etc. A single accident on one of the divided carriage ways can block it for 8 hours. Last month the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority trialled a new diversion system they hope to use to stop this problem, however it requires more off ramps to be built to filter the traffic away from the highway and around only 50% of them exist so far. The NSW government is in serious financial crisis so the chances of the others being constructed soon is not great. The Princes Highway leads from Sydney south, through Wollongong and then all the way to Melbourne. Of the two major highways, the Princes Highway is probably better if one was mad enough to try a weekday commute in your own car.
3. Most people living in Wollongong or the Central Coast end up hating the commute, which incidentally is actually taking longer now than it did 10 and 20 years ago. The only reason people do this is for work and in particular the higher salaries that are paid to people who work in Sydney. In Wollongong employers talk about the "commuters discount" which is how much a salary drop a local will accept in order to avoid spending 15 hours a week commuting. The general concensus is they can get someone for between $20-30,000 a year cheaper. That will give you some idea of the personal cost commuters put on commuting.
4. In terms of Universities, the only unis close to Wollongong is the University of Wollongong, which regularly features in the Good Universities Guide as one of the top ranked unis in Australia for a variety of variables. The main campus is beautiful. It is friendly. The ocean is only ever a few minutes away by car. The Central Coast has Newcastle Uni which is ha sits main campus in Newcastle, so it is a longish drive from the Central Coast to get to it. There is a satellite campus nearer but it only is a few buildings and does not offer all the courses and subjects at the main campus. Of the two unis, I consider Wollongong to be superior - it certainly wins more awards than Newcastle and does not seem to have the financial crises that regularly hit Newcastle Uni.
5. If you are working in Sydney then I strongly suggest you live in Sydney. Yes, it is more expensive BUT it is a harbour and ocean city, surrounded by National Parks, so getting into the open air is easy and into a quality environment is simple. By living right in eg., Sydney CBD or on an electric rail line only a few stops from the CBD, your life is not wasted being a commuter or a driver.
6. If you are committed to commuting from either the Central Coast or Wollongong, then Wollongong would win for the reasons given.
I hope this helps.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

Can't comment on the North of Sydney but I live about 40K South of Wollongong and if I had to do the commute to Sydney on a daily basis it would drive me nuts. You should think of the train system from South of Sydney as more like a scenic railway than a fast commuter service... its very cheap by UK terms, and its a very pretty view out of the window, but by God its slow.

ozbaz

Hi

I find all this enormously helpful, and appreciate that very long and detailed reply which was obviously written to fill the time on a looong commute.
So- I get it. Commuting isn't worth the stress. But to live , say, in Woolongong and work on the southern fringes of Sydney would be OK, I suppose??
I assume there are hospitals ( for a nurse) all over Sydney and beyond...

It really really helps to hear of people's real experiences and also helps to better get used to a few negative points, ie infrastructure!

Also the point about the uni is good, as we have two Uni going kids.

Thanks a lot everyone!

iamthecreaturefromuranus

Living in the suburbs North of Wollongong, Austinmer, Coledale, Thirroul, etc and going in to South Sydney is perfectly possible.... and plenty of people from Sydney realise that, which is why the property prices are higher than average. Take a look at Austinmer and surrounds..

http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin...any&cat=&o=def

Blossom

WHAT about working at the hospital in Wollongong - pleasant place to live and not commuting!

bourbon-biscuit

HAve a look at these area health board links:

South Eastern Sydney and Illawarra: http://www.sesiahs.health.nsw.gov.au/index.asp
and their job page: http://www.sesiahs.health.nsw.gov.au...ment/index.asp

Greater Southern Area Health:
http://www.gsahs.nsw.gov.au/

Here's their jobs link: https://www.ezisuite.net/eziJob/GSAH...fm?fbi=0&fvt=1

You can navigate from those links to maps that show the service areas.

bourbon-biscuit

Heaps of nursing jobs in the South Eastern Sydney and Illawarra

http://www7.health.nsw.gov.au/health...TOKEN=10244377

bourbon-biscuit

and I can't write any more now because I have to fly but I do have some stuff to add RE Newcastle and the Hunter because I think you shouldn't dismiss it yet- you've only had opinion- there's some stuff about the Uni you need to know before you take the above as gospel

calcolerich

I'm in the same boat, except I've been living in Sydney for the past 7 years. I'm 35 years old with 2 kids (13 and 15 years old), and although I must admit Sydney is beautiful and fabulous, it is just so hard to get ahead; it's work, work work, and it's nearly impossible to buy a nice house anywhere near the water, and if you're living in Oz, you may as well take advantage of living near some of the world's best beaches.

Plus my kids are a bit too metro growing up here...I want my kids to grow up outdoors. Sydney does have amazing opportunities, but in my experience, it's a bit of a rat race unless you are very well off: too expensive, too much traffic, too many people, too far to drive, everybody lives far away from eachother so we rarely get together to visit.

My heart has been telling me Sydney isn't for me almost since I arrived in Oz, that Perth is the place for me, but it's so isolated, I don't know anybody there, and the kids and I fly to the US regularly and that'd add 6+ hours to our already 22+ hour flight.

I've been researching for months, and have come up with a plan to move to the top half of Wollongong region (although the bottom half has some of the most amazing views in the world of Lake Illawarra, Lagoon, Ocean and Mountains all in one). The reason I say top half is I get the impression it's a bit more upper class. I've settled on Bulli, which is just near Thirroul (maybe the nicest yet most expensive area of the Gong). Major train station 5 minutes away in Thirroul, trek from there to Sydney City centre is 1 hour 15 minutes. The public high school in Bulli leads out onto the ocean. There are at least 3 excellent schools in the Gong as far as I can tell: Smith Hill Selective, Edmund Rice for boys, St Marys Star of the Sea for girls. The houses are almost half the price of what you'd pay for the same thing in Sydney, and many have great views.

But today at lunch, my friends in Sydney had an intervention to try and stop us from leaving. They think Wollongong has more crime, bogans, worse schools, less ambitions for the kids, fog, wind, not much to do, etc. But none of them have ever lived there, or know anybody that does. They also have quite a bit of money. Not many Sydney-siders seem to have a great opinion of the Gong, they think more of Central Coast, although I'm not sure why except it's warmer and the Gong has a bad rep.

I'm so confused, I thought I had a good plan, where I could pay less rent, save up to buy a house on the beach, live a cruisier, more outdoors lifestyle, with friends closer around so we can do things like: wakeboard, surf, fish, camp, 4x4, be regulars at a local pub, the kids can walk to school instead of travel 1 hr each way, etc. (which there's not a whole lot of in Sydney), but I don't want to mess up and make the wrong decision, or my kids to lose opportunities. I just want to do the best thing, I'm in search of the perfect lifestyle.

It would be wonderful to talk to someone that actually lives in the Gong, or Central Coast, but has lived in Sydney. Is there anybody that has some time to talk to me on the phone here in Oz? I have a month to decide what to do, and would love to hear someone with actual experience. Thanks and good luck to the starter of this thread ;D You'll love Australia, any of those places you've mentioned are beautiful. Now we just have to figure out which is the best place for us

joho

I live on the Central coast and love it, but its not for everyone, I have a job at the hospital in Gosford, but there are hospitals at Wyong or Hornsby in good comutible distance. Also you have to think of shift times (depending on hubbies job of course) my son did his enrolled nursing course in sydney and the commute was hell for him for shift work. My hubby drives to Homebush but he does shifts and travels out of rush hour and that takes him aprrox 1 hour to 1 hour 15 mins.

Jo

seang

great 2nd post by cocococo