Australia

[Lucy]

What's so fantastic about it? It's extremely expensive, traffic is tulipe, public transport is tulipe. The only nice part of Sydney is around the harbour, but normal people can only afford to live in it's sucuidally boring and ugly suburbs.

It's hard to believe you have lived there.

The only really expensive thing is rubbish / convenience food, which I guess is what most english people live on. Fresh fruit and vegetables are grown outside, without the use of pollytunnels or massive amounts of fertilizer, strawberries taste like strawberries, not like the watery yuk you get here. All fresh food is excluded from GST. The choice of food for lunch is massive, unlike the frozen sandwiches M&S offer.

I lived in Kirribilli for seven years, and drove everywhere, the traffic is nothing like London, and the roads in and around Sydney and Melbourne are well thought out and and queuing is unheard of, getting left on the motorway overnight, for any reason would cause outrage.

The weather is superb. The people are friendly and life is sweet.

[rootsnall]

here's a thought...
if you fly 6 hours out of Sydney, heading for London via Dubai or Singapore, you're still over Australia...

You must be on a slow plane.

[XTC]

Nope, I'm in London after moving back from Australia a few years ago. I was in Australia in Melbourne and Sydney at various times for over 20 years before that.

You must have been living in Alice mate...

[Moscow Mule]

What's so fantastic about it? It's extremely expensive, traffic is tulipe, public transport is tulipe. The only nice part of Sydney is around the harbour, but normal people can only afford to live in it's sucuidally boring and ugly suburbs.

I'm sorry you had such a crap time, but you're way off the mark here.

I lived 30 seconds away from the beach and could get the bus into the centre of town in 20 mins - every 20 mins for 16 hours a day, every 1 hour through the middle of the night.

Buses run in bus lanes, and are good value. I spent less time on the trains but never had a bad experience. If you live in the right part of town you can even get the ferry to work - awesome.

How can any of the beach suburbs be described as ugly? They're no oil painting but none of them are full of concrete high-rise a-la tower hamlets.

[Moscow Mule]

I lived in Kirribilli for seven years,

Ooo unlucky.

[gingerjedi]

strawberries taste like strawberries, not like the watery yuk you get here.

Where do you buy your strawberries? I think the recent ones have been excellent?? Maybe you’re thinking of the Spanish ones grown out of season during the winter months when they're not growing oranges.

[XTC]

It's hard to believe you have lived there.

The only really expensive thing is rubbish / convenience food, which I guess is what most english people live on. Fresh fruit and vegetables are grown outside, without the use of pollytunnels or massive amounts of fertilizer, strawberries taste like strawberries, not like the watery yuk you get here. All fresh food is excluded from GST. The choice of food for lunch is massive, unlike the frozen sandwiches M&S offer.

I lived in Kirribilli for seven years, and drove everywhere, the traffic is nothing like London, and the roads in and around Sydney and Melbourne are well thought out and and queuing is unheard of, getting left on the motorway overnight, for any reason would cause outrage.

The weather is superb. The people are friendly and life is sweet.

It is a lot more expensive now that it used to be, especially Perth where I'm from. House prices have shot up, but wages haven't. I bought my house for about £65K in 2003 (4X2) & it's now worth about £220K, yet in 4 years wages have hardly risen. As a contractor in the UK I can get between £350 & £450 /day whereas in Perth I could probably get about £120/day. In general everyday things such as food, petrol etc are cheaper than the UK, but when you look at wages and house prices, it's not that cheap.

[XTC]

What's so fantastic about it? It's extremely expensive, traffic is tulipe, public transport is tulipe. The only nice part of Sydney is around the harbour, but normal people can only afford to live in it's sucuidally boring and ugly suburbs.

TBH we get a lot of English immigrants who come to Oz/Perth hate it and move back to Bolton 2 years later. I was working with this old bag on my last project and she used to drone on about how much she hated Perth.

"I hate the fooking beaches there, bloody sand everywhere, too hot, and nearest pubs were 5miles away.."

"You can't go out in summer cos it's too hot and in winter it rains all the time, so you end up inside all day watching neighbours, I can do that back in Bolton."

I just used to listen to her and smile and thank god that she hates Perth.

[gingerjedi]

It is a lot more expensive now that it used to be, especially Perth where I'm from. House prices have shot up, but wages haven't. I bought my house for about £65K in 2003 (4X2) & it's now worth about £220K, yet in 4 years wages have hardly risen. As a contractor in the UK I can get between £350 & £450 /day whereas in Perth I could probably get about £120/day. In general everyday things such as food, petrol etc are cheaper than the UK, but when you look at wages and house prices, it's not that cheap.

Sorry... which country are we talking about now??

[rootsnall]

I lived in Oz ( mostly Sydney ) for 8 years but returned to Blighty about 5 years ago with no thoughts of going back, yet ! Sydney is the best place I've lived by some distance but was simply too far away from family and friends and I got homesick in the end. It has started to get expensive and over developed but if you can afford to live in the harbour or beach suburbs then its pretty hard to beat. Melbourne is OK but the rest of Oz I wouldn't consider for anything other than a holiday. I also lived in Kirribilli and McMahons Pt, 10 minute commute to work on a ferry, now doing an hour plus on various motorways, must be mad !