Good to hear another vote for Brisbane, obviously I agree with you, that’s why I live here.

Hope those mosquitoes leave you alone soon, surely they’re not still pestering you this time of year?

But in a perverse way, I was proud of that long post. Then someone comes along with a comment even longer! And a bigger rant! So I reckon the only way you’ll beat it is by ranting. You don’t want to do that, do you?

As for the perfect place to live, I still go with Brisbane. I don’t go with your traffic gripe, but then I stay away from traffic hotspots, I don’t have to commute into the city. I live in Western suburbs, leafy green and no traffic. Unless you want to go to the city.

I live in the countryside, yet I’m only 22 km from the city. I can get the bus for six dollars and be there in 40 minutes. Bars, restaurants, casinos, nightlife, Sun Corp Stadium for sporting events, there is plenty there.

I don’t miss the four seasons, but most of us here do not think it’s hot all year round. It’s cold now, it was only 16° C today. Relatively, that’s cold. In England, that would have been pretty good. 18° C (and sunny) in England and I would have had my shorts on. Here, now that I am acclimatised, it feels cold.

Brisbane is sprawled out and it can take a while to get to places, but isn’t that good? It’s certainly not overcrowded. So it still gets my vote, but like you, I can’t stay in one place for too long.

So I’ve got my eyes open too, I won’t be living in Brissie forever.

I need to try harder re word limit, I’m way off.
I’d expect most people to disagree with much of what I’ve written, otherwise we would all live in one perfect place..what is great for one person, or even at certain different stages of life, is not great for another..
Anyone who finds somewhere right for them, where they feel completely at home even if there are things (weather, traffic, far from everywhere) that they dont like, is very lucky. Unfortunately my ‘spots’ are not OHs , so hence the gypsy in me…

You have given us a very comprehensive roundup of Australian cities, thank you. I don’t agree with all of it, but I do agree with quite a lot of it. But obviously I don’t have the same experience of living here that you do and I have not yet been to Canberra, Perth or Darwin.

But I’ve got to ask, have you made your decision yet? Where are you going to move to next?

I believe both countries have their good and bad and all the posts here have relevent points. As I’m moving during the next 12 months and trying to find the right place I find I’m really struggling with where to go. I want to be closer to or in a city as I have lived in the country most of my life aand am rather tired of the lack of resources and the constant travel to access resources. I’ve been researching this for about 5 years now and am reaching a decision. apologies to everyone, LOL. this is only my thoughts…
Sydney-never ever…too spread out, too expensive, crowded,…
Melbourne- awful weather, very expensive, spread out, crowded
Hobart- freezing, isolated, pretty dull..
Perth- too far away, very expensive to visit others or have others visit,(fares etc), very hot and dry, very isolated
Darwin, far too hot and wet for 8 months of the year, isolated, extremely expensive, cultural problems…very limited things to do, everything stops during the wet..no outdoors stuff at all!!!! crocs, stingers, cannot swim anywhere or use the beaches, but lovely place for a holiday at the right time!
Canberra- too many politicians..LOL, freezing or boiling.., very boring..bushfire prone, but , close to many other places like sydney or melbourne etc. and the snow if you are keen and, great flyfishing!
Adelaide, cheap housing close to the city, everything is close as it is small, hot and dry but cold in winter!, many find it boring..but I grew up there so am prepared.., low population so not crowded, bad weather..but in the middle ie. only 2 hours flight from most places perth, sydney, brisbane, darwin, hobart..
Brisbane, nice weather except for the bad summer storms and flash floods every summer, very spread out so it takes ages to get to where you need to go, heavy traffic issues, crowded, expensive, too many tolls as with melb and sydney, but leafy and pretty in places but the better spots are very expensive to live, close to sunny coast, and the absolutely hideous gold coast..

am I up to the record yet?LOL…xxxx

And what’s all this? – ‘if OZ don’t work’ – you can make it work. All those things you want to do, this is exactly the right place to do them. So enjoy your new home and I know your son will love it here too.

Good luck!

Hi Deborah

Wow! Yes, you did write a lot. I’m afraid it’s not the record though, I believe we have one or two longer ones:-) You have some interesting thoughts, do you actually like it here?

Things are more expensive here but it sounds like you are used to that. Only this week stats have found most cities in Aust more expensive to live in than New York… Definitely much more exxy than UK, even if the dollar were not doing so well. The most expensive places here are Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin (very exxpensive there!! average house rental, and I mean average rather yukky house, is about $600. a week, nice house about $1200. and city flat about $2000. a week).

We do have lovely weather though, except where I live it did rain every day for 7 months!! don’t even get me started on the mold issues!!recently and we had countless floods, food sources completely cut off and roads lifted etc. We tend to get heavy rainfall but do also get our sunny days. Water restrictions are a nuisance, not because of showers etc. (we always had tanks so had to be very careful anyway, no water to the house), but because you watch your garden die, cant wash the car, have to be really careful with the washing machine etc.. after a while it gets annoying. If you are seen with a hose you can almost get arrested! and there are very heavy fines and water rates are expensive. but it’s just part of living in a ‘dry’ continent. Really, the country has heaps and heeaps of water, in WA the Ord scheme has more water than a zillion sydney harbours..we just have no infrastructure to get it elsewhere and all our flood water ends up in the sea etc… Govt. should get onto it one day!!

I’d like to live in UK again just for a couple of years. I live in QLD but am going to move back to SA in a year or two. cairns is quite nice, my son lives there, but I dont think I could live there..

Re aussies having a higher rate of pay for some jobs, this can be a real curse for the economy as small businesses really struggle so do not have as many employees as they need, close for weekends, public hols as they cannot afford the massive wages etc. so it rebounds. ie. touristy towns cannot afford to keep things open for tourists during easter etc. or sundays, then there is nothing to do and not many places to eat, so people stop arriving, a domino effect. also it makes ‘tours’ very very expensive so people cannot afford to go. I know all this from many many years of experience. It also means many employees only get a few hours a week as things are tight. So there is good and bad to the situation.
The great outdoors is great. We had a climate smart electrician here recently and our swimming pool costs us $350 a quarter in electricity!! We can cut that down by spending a couple of thousand dollars on rewiring or the new solar technnology but as we are hoping to move we wont be bothering.. We are also one of the most obese nations along with the USA, a very unhealthy lot…the western curse I suppose..LOL.
I didn’t need the doctor in UK and mine here is a lifelong friend and I”ve never paid, but when I lived iin Darwin I paid and it was $75 a visit! I only went once..LOL.. and had consults over the phone with my GP friend instead..LOL. Many people clog up the hospital emergency system with silly problems because they either cannot afford or wont pay to go to the doctors. If you live somewhere like Darwin or other remote places,, you have to travel thousands of miles for a lot of health care, often whole families have to move and give up their jobs and homes if a member has cancer etc. but I guess that would be the same in Africa too, large country.
Re the guy who was ‘complaining’ a lot.. I think he must have had bad experiences and also there is a lot of australia (even here) that gets very very cold, snows, floods, cyclones, all manner of nasties etc. so I’m giving him the benefit of thinking he has seen the worse but not the best. I have my heater on right now and I”m in QLD!! it does get cold. If you are not near the coast it gets below freezing every night in winter and in NSW and VIc and Tassie it snows for several months. The only thing putting me off SA is the adelaide winters! LOL.

Re race issues. Probably bit complicated here (and in South Africa) because ‘they’ were here first where as in UK it was a caucasion country..I’ve lived in community areas and predominately white places and I think it is a very sensitive issue. One of the largest jproblems is education as the aboriginals have such a different culture regarding the importance of this than we do and our culture is a very recent phenomena to them. They also have hundreds of tribes and each has a different language so to publish books etc. for them is almost impossible. THere are a zillion issues that throwing money at will never fix. ie. all their health care is free, but most would not go to a doctor (cultural) so have terrible health issues, it’s such a difficult situation, so yes, we are sensitive here about it and many are also quite horrible about it which I find appalling.

We don’t take hardly any migrants complared to other places, so I think we have room for you Almost there!

OMG! think I’ve written far too much!! Bye for now.xxxx