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| Auckland to Melbourne Reccie | |
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| Topic Started: 1 Apr 2008, 10:59 AM (441 Views) | |
| WithIce | 1 Apr 2008, 10:59 AM Post #1 |
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Well ours was only a short reccie and as we are living in NZ a relatively short flight, although somehow we still managed to get jet lag! But as I love reading other peoples reports I thought I'd post a few of our observations. We stayed in Brighton East and due to a miscalculation on my part, we were without a hire car, (the miscalculation was to leave the hiring of the hire car to my OH!), but although it meant we didn't get to see many suburbs it did mean we got to see what Melbourne was like on foot and on public transport. Melbourne - the city. Well after Auckland, Melbourne had a great vibe; it had some really interesting architecture and just gave the impression that there was something to do in all those side streets. I can see why many people say it 'grows on you', as I suspect it would take a long time to discover everything it has to offer. This appeals to me but it made me realise that we would probably only visit the centre on a 'day trip' as big cities with small children and buggys don't mix that well. So it was instantly clear to us that we would need a reasonably self contained suburb that had quite a few facilities for children, and we would save Melbourne central for the weekends. Brighton Well, like many, we loved Brighton and what our reccie helped us to understand is just how big Brighton is. When you look on a map you think "Oh I could live in Brighton East and take 15/20 minute walk to the beach", but in reality you have to cross the enormous Nepean highway, (we had to cross 5 sets of lights which the boys liked as they got to press lots of buttons), and then what looks like 15 minutes on a map is in fact 45 minutes with kids in tow. For me personally, I don't want to live somewhere where I have to drive to get to everything, so this has helped us to cross a lot of places off our original list. What I liked about Brighton was the wide tree lined streets, Church Street with its cafes & shops and the fact that it had a train station. (We don't have trains near us in Auckland and I miss them!). I thought the beach was nice, but unlike NZ beaches, was a bit busier and had a lot of sunbathers. I also noticed people seemed to come for the day with mountains of stuff rather than popping by on the way back from the shops or for the kids to have a 10minute play. I liked the walkway that runs alongside it and I imagine there is a very nice coastal walk along the bayside. The shared bike/walkers footpath was really irritating though and I bet neither group is happy, with cyclists feeling like the pedestrians are always in the way, and pedestrians worried about getting run down. It’s very hard to explain to a toddler to stay on one side of the white line! I wasn't so keen on the Brighton architecture, it was an inconsistent mix of old and new and very bad taste. I think Hyacinth Bucket would find plenty of places she'd like! I also noted a lot of the modern properties chose to fill the plot with hardly any garden, which meant that you could shake hands out of the window of your $2million property with your neighbour in their $2million property. I don't know if this is down to poor planning regs or whether aussies, like kiwis, have a different view on privacy to those from the UK. Trams Not as fun as I thought they'd be, as I found them a bit awkward with the buggy and I never had the right change. Weather Well we were really lucky, we arrived after the heatwave and just before things started to cool down - we had absolutely lovely weather! I did speak to someone who said that the heatwave had been difficult on many as very few homes had a/c so people tended to flock to the shopping centres to cool down. People Everyone I met was very nice and I met a real mix of people from all over. I really like the multicultural element of Melbourne and I think it certainly helps to settle somewhere where lots of people are in the same boat as you. What a difference.... A day can make! One day we turned up and they were digging up all round Flinders Street station, the trams weren't running as normal, it was noisy, dusty and the kids were unhappy from having to do so much walking. We came in the back way to Flinders train station down the subway which smelt of wee and we had to carry the buggy down a large flight of stairs. Not the best first impression! A couple of days later we arrived at the front of Flinders, came up in the lift to a nice modern part of the station which had shops and cafes. Then exited to find the trams were back running and most of the works had finished. We were all in a much better mood and had the energy to have a nice stroll round Federation Square. It just goes to show how different your impression of the same place can be depending on what kind of day you turn up on! Shopping Well coming from NZ, the shopping seemed great! Someone gave us the tip of eating at the foodcourt at Melbourne Central, as a kid friendly place and it was great! I must admit we are somewhat starved of shopping in our little part of NZ so maybe it was more impressive to us. Verdict I think Melbourne fits the category of being halfway between Auckland and London in style; it seems an interesting, easy going, city. As the suburbs of Melbourne are so big I feel fairly sure that we can find a little part that will suit us. Having already emigrated once to NZ I think we have already got use to a lot of the differences between the Northern and Southern hemisphere and so I expect this move will be a lot easier than the first one. That said, even a weekend trip to Melbourne exhausted us and reminded me just how hard it is to do anything with young kids in tow. So we will wait a year or two until our youngest is a bit more cooperative. I think being nearer this time means it seems less of a big deal. We can take it at our own pace and pop back for another visit if we want; in the meantime we will continue to collect as much info as possible to make the move as smooth as possible when it does happen! Thanks for all the tips and advice we got from everyone before going! WithIce x |
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| NTH SHARMAN | 11 Apr 2008, 06:45 AM Post #2 |
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Thanks for taking the time and trouble to post your report. I really love reading reccie reports and yours was very upbeat. 10 out of 10 :thumbsup: T xx |
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| WithIce | 16 Apr 2008, 01:00 PM Post #3 |
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Thanks NTH Sharman!
:) I was beginning to think I'd wrote something wrong as mine was the only reccie with no replies! Phew! WithIce x |
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| NTH SHARMAN | 20 Apr 2008, 07:31 AM Post #4 |
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Hi Withice. Sometimes I think this section gets a bit overlooked. When I wrote mine, I also put a post on the general section to tell the other Britvicers that I'd posted in the reccie section. Its a shame that all your hard work and typing goes unnoticed. I enjoyed it tho. T xx |
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