Cons in Canberra? Hmmm let me think
Ah, we dont have a beach!
But we do have several lakes so that sort of makes up for it!
Your question is actually incredibly difficult to answer! So in very general terms - Canberra covers quite a distance - think it is about 60km from one end to the other give or take a few m, However, in real terms, nowhere is really very far from anywhere else and Civic (the main centre) is only about 35 km from anywhere else and if you can avoid the REAL rush hour traffic then it never takes very long to get anywhere. I live very close to Civic and can get down to Banks in about 35 minutes on a good day and that is about as far South as you can get.
So, bottom line, anywhere is going to be reasonable in terms of access. Which town centre did you mean? We have 5 of them, the main one being Civic which is the oldest one. Generally with housing, the oldest suburbs are closer to Civic but the downside is that the houses are generally 30s, 40s and 50s so can be small but on big blocks or the old houses have been demolished and brand new apartment blocks have replaced them. The further out you go, the houses get newer and bigger and the blocks get smaller. The best place to look for rentals is
here. The only suburbs I would avoid would be Charnwood, Richardson and some parts of Narrabundah although some parts of almost any suburbs can be a bit iffey. No bible belty areas to speak of! Unfortunately, cheap rents and best areas are not words that go together in the same sentence!!!
Most schools are just fine but I would be happy to pm you about what to avoid - not going to do it on a public forum. Childcare - can be a bit tricky to find. The baseline is apparently about $320 per child per week in the Civic area but if you have PR then there are government subsidies depending on your income which brings it down a bit.
Canberra tends to be a bit insular and although people are generally friendly they are not the "come over to dinner" all the time type people. It is quite easy to get into social groups though especially through the workplace.
Buying a car - you are spoiled for choice, we have hundreds of used car lots as well as a weekly private market out at one of the fruit markets at the weekend. New cars are very easy to come by. Petrol is getting up around the $1.40 - $1.50/l mark at the moment so something economical is probably going to be the order of the day - living in Canberra it is unlikely that you are going to need a big SUV gas guzzler unless you fancy taking off to the bush every weekend.
Canberra advice
Hi,
) It is a 3 hour drive to Sydney which is definitely do-able for a long day or a more easy weekend, a couple of hours from some very nice beaches and about 7 hours drive or 1 hour flight from Melbourne.
