anfieldlegend

HI Nicola57 Good luck also with your move I would highly recommend St Benedicts. Its a lovely school. We looked at a number of different school options for our daughter including both state and private before settling on st benedicts. A lovely campus with fantastic teachers and support staff. They havent lost any of the values of a small school as it has grown. We loved the fact that eventually they can offer p-12 in one shared campus and that our daughter can go through her schooling with a core group of the same children. As I said, we did our research and visited/interviewed a number of schools before we decided on the school and we feel we have made the right decision. Hope this helps.

Hi good luck with the move. my family and I live in north lakes and have done for over 6 years. we love it here though it may not be everybodys ideal choice. we like the newness of the housing stock and new facilities that have been added as the suburb has grown. we know brits in the area fom school, south africans, a few kiwis and a few aussies to add to the mix.... :-) we have a young child attending st benedicts catholic school we are on our 2nd house so it cant be that bad! would be happy to answer any questions you may have if i can. kind regards

Hi get into your car and drive down to Toombul shopping centre (depending on time of arrival). there is a Target in the centre and will have car seats for your young children. the centre is easy to get to from the airport and only 10 mins drive down airport drive and along the east/west arterial. hope this helps and welcome to oz, hope your move goes well.

hi just wanted to share my experience. I moved to australia in 1996 with work and at first loved it. the lifestyle, new friends and job made it a great place to be. over the next few years, i met someone, settled down and even had some family also emigrate out, so you could say all was great. but something slowly started eating away at me and it was home sickness......the first thing i thought about each day was going home and the last thing at night was going home.....it got bad! so after quitting my job, splitting up from the girlfriend and selling just about everything i had bought here, i decided to go home (2000). once i made the decision to go home, it felt so right, i felt like a weight had lifted off me and i was going home. so after a tearful farewell from my then ex, i got on the plane to manchester and left thinking i would never go back. when i arrived back i got off the plane and for a few months was happy back in my life in runcorn, back working for the same company and living in the family home. but again slowly something started eating away at me and it was a realisation that i missed australia, my mates and my then ex girlfriend. life felt like it had stood still in the uk with my mates doing the same thing, going to the same pub and complaining about the same things and yet i had seen and done so much in the 4 years away. to cut a very long story short, my then ex came to the uk, and she was able to do 6 months in the uk and six months in australia due to her work as a pharmacist. i slowly started to hate being in the uk but as i had landed a great job paying big money and giving me long term financial security, i ended up staying for 4 years until one morning not long before my partner was due to fly back to oz, we decided to give oz a go again....so off we went. that was nearly 8 years ago and i have never been back to the uk since. i knew immediately on return to oz that this is the place to live and raise a family. it just felt right the second time. we live north of brisbane, have a child and a great life here. i guess it was easier second time as i had some family here and over the last 8 years i have had two brothers and a sister along with their families emigrate. sure there are things that annoy me in oz and things i miss about the uk including a 50% drop off in salary but they are not so important compared to a good lifestyle and watching our child brought up here. sorry if i have bored ayone with this message........

the schools issue is a big one, we looked at 2 state schools and 3 private/church schools and settled on st benedicts on anzac avenue. north lakes state school was just too big though this will start to thin off as mango hill ss and also the murrumba downs secondary school open. bounty boulevard looked good and had a good campus but we had heard mixed reviews from friends. the lakes college was good but expensive so then we looked at living faith lutheran school and st benedicts catholic school. both the last two have large enrolement applications for prep so it is kind of pot luck really. we are very happy with our school choice. we do not have a backyard pool so we use the pathways leisure centre or go down to redcliffe which is a short drive away. as previously mentioned the area does have its drawbacks but these are outweighed by the positives. maybe rent in the area for12 months before you decide to buy, that is what we did. hope this helps a little

hi we have been in north lakes for over 4 years and love the area. lots of parks, walk and cycle ways, dog parks, the markets, westfield and good schools. sure the blocks have gotten smaller as the new areas have opened up but with the amount of parks within each estate, it is not such an issue. we have a five year old and are on a 500sqm block and it is big enough for a trampline and swing etc. we have good neighbours and a nice quiet street. there are a couple of state schools and a private one with a catholic school on anzac avenue at mango hill so you have your choice of which one to send your children too depending on your circumstances. i guess that where you live is as much about the area as what you put into it. there are some downsides though to north lakes and mango hill. the biggest being the commute during the week can be a pain from 0530 till about 0800 though for me it is not such an issue as i can leave for work when i want. with big investments due over the next few years the suburbs will boom. lol i sound like a real estste agent for stockland but am not, just a happy resident :-)