Yes, Bendigo is a great place to live, and there are properties there which are nice if you want some acreage. It is also a great place if you like gold prospecting, being in Victoria, there is plenty of small pieces of gold to be found, (don't fall down any of the old shafts though!). My son is a refrigeration technician and he put 50 resumes around the greater Bendigo area, and had a job within a week. Even though the economy has cooled in the last four months or so, there is plenty of opportunity for those people who go hard at finding a job. My son put his resume into Safeway, Aldi and also the massive homewares warehouse Bunnings, they often look for tradespersons to work in the warehouses (retail assistants etc).
Bendigo isn't as chilly as Ballarat, and the food - restaurants and wineries are lovely ! Also, another place not that far out of Bendigo is a place called Heathcote (get onto realestate.com.au (click onto Victoria) and type Heathcote into the search area. There are plenty of well prices properties there, and it is not that far out of Bendigo and not that far out of Melbourne on the freeway either. My son tells me that this new upgrade to the road has taken some of the driving time off the trip to Bendigo. There are so many nice places in Victoria to live. Someone mentioned Bairnsdale (in Gippsland) it is also a nice place, but just depends what you want. My brother lives in Paynesville on the Gippsland Lakes, and Bairnsdale is the closest small city to there. It has everything you want, including a great hospital, it is 14 kms from. There is not much at Paynesville of course, as it is a small quiet lakeside town, but it is a nice lifestyle. It is quite a way from Melbourne, (3 and a half hours), but if you do need to get to Melbourne it is freeway all the way. Anywhere along the Mornington Peninsula is nice as well. (Mornington I love, and there are plenty of surrounding places which are great, and there are lots of Brits down on the peninsula).
On the cheaper side of the peninsula, then look also at affordable Rosebud, it is one of those places where there are a lot of older retired people, but the demographic of Rosebud is changing. It is a very affordable beachside location. I had fish and chips on the beach there the other day, it has a fantastic beach, you can go out a way until it gets deep, great for kids. But anywhere down that area, (if you come to Melbourne get a car and drive right down the whole area (follow the Nepean Highway and you take the whole area in - Frankston, Rosebud Mornington, Mount Martha, Mount Eliza, Balnarring, and plenty more. The new freeway (part tollway)
gets you there in no time.
Hope this helps.
cheers
Olly
Melbourne
The Following User Says Thank You to olly For This Useful Post:
Michelle,
Warrandyte is beautiful, the river runs through it, and it is very bushy. Many of the houses there are lovely, it is not too far from Melbourne and is one of the lovely eastern suburbs, BUT because it is so bushy some people worry about the hazards of bush fire sweeping through there, but again I guess anywhere in Australia can be bushfire hazard. Look at some surrounding suburbs as well, such as Eltham, Diamond Creek, North Ringwood, Doncaster, Templestowe (great amenities/schools etc/public transport etc)
cheers
Olly
Olly
Thanks for the info. We have been looking at Templestowe too, although I shall now keep my eye on the other areas.
No problem Michelle. With regards to Templestowe etc, it depends what price range you are looking at, it is an outer eastern suburb, and there are many nice suburbs in the eastern region, the eastern freeway connects most of the suburbs out here, and then it becomes the Frankston freeway/tollway, so you can get from the city, right through the heart of the eastern suburbs, through Fitzroy, Kew, Hawthorn, Doncaster, Box Hill, Blackburn, Ringwood, Waverley (Monash) down to Frankston, Mornington, Portsea etc in no time. Many of the best private schools are accessible from Templestowe (depends if you want private) otherwise there are some good secondary high schools (my kids went to Doncaster Secondary College - very good, very academic) but you have to look around obviously. Box Hill High is good. There are some 'select' entry high schools for bright kids in Melbourne (Melbourne High, McRobertson Girls High). In Templestowe there are mainly buses, but they all connect to the main train station (Box Hill is a big 'transport' hub. The large shopping complex Doncaster Shoppingtown also has a bus depot, connecting to all the surrounding schools.
Any other information you need I might be able to find out for you. Maybe some of this helps.
Kind regards
Olly
