Central Coast v South Coast - Sydney

[Whitey287]

We are presently living on the Central Coast (only been here a couple of months). After visiting south of Sydney around Kiama, Shell Cove/Harbour and Wollongong, we now have in our heads a potential move down there. Has anyone lived in both areas or at least the south coast area to give us some idea of whether a move is a good idea or not? Also which areas are nice for families, have access to the railway for a commute to Sydney CBD (or drive to station and park) and access to beaches in a reasonable timescale?? Not asking for much am I!

We just liked how open it seemed down there and how green the landscape was..... thanks in advance :cute:

[MARYROSE02]

I Googled both 'Wollongong to Sydney by train' and 'Gosford to Sydney by train' and it seems to be a similar commute - 1 hr, 50 odd minutes? I guess the further you move south from Wollongong and north from Gosford, the times will go up accordingly. Kiama is nice but well over two hours to Sydney. I presume if you are happy with commuting from the Central Coast to Sydney, then you will cope with a similar commute from Wollongong?

[Marisawright]

There's only one railway line from Sydney to Wollongong and it stops at every small town, so just look at the station names and you've got it. Sydney CBD to Wollongong is two hours on the train, I can't imagine commuting further than that!

 

The South Coast is lovely but generally a lot more expensive for housing than the Central Coast, until you get past Wollongong.

[MARYROSE02]

There's only one railway line from Sydney to Wollongong and it stops at every small town, so just look at the station names and you've got it. Sydney CBD to Wollongong is two hours on the train, I can't imagine commuting further than that!

 

The South Coast is lovely but generally a lot more expensive for housing than the Central Coast, until you get past Wollongong.

 

How are things going in Southampton? Having been brought up there from (almost) birth in 1954 to 1978 (in Blackfield), when I first came to Oz, and then living there again from 1996 to 2008 (in Marchwood), Soton and surrounds are always in my thoughts. Do you have your own links with the area?

 

I was born in South Shields, where my Mum comes from. My parents moved to Hants when my Dad got a job at Esso refinery in Fawley.

[Marisawright]

How are things going in Southampton? Having been brought up there from (almost) birth in 1954 to 1978 (in Blackfield), when I first came to Oz, and then living there again from 1996 to 2008 (in Marchwood), Soton and surrounds are always in my thoughts. Do you have your own links with the area?

.

 

It's a love-hate relationship now! We absolutely adore our one-bedroom flat: we left all our books, DVD's, ornaments etc in Australia so it's plenty big enough (and in fact, I'm loving livig without all that clutter). This is the view:

 

 

I still find Southampton's CBD and Woolston (our suburb) utterly depressing - I think the problem is that everyone who can afford it lives in the New Forest and commutes, leaving only the poor and the disabled in the inner ring. I've never seen so many people with crutches and wheelchairs. However my spirits lift every time I get home and look out at the view!

 

We've also managed to find some ballroom dancing classes so we're not totally isolated any more. We've given up our Sydney habit of going out for breakfast or dinner but again, it's not so bad staying home when you have such a great view to look out at. During the day, the river is alive with sailboats, scullers and working boats going up and down, and we also see the cruise ships coming in.

[MARYROSE02]

I never lived in Southampton itself. It was always my 'Big Smoke.' Neither Blackfield, nor Marchwood, are what I could call pretty New Forest villages, although they are both with the NFDC boundaries. Blackfield grew up around the refinery, and Marchwood was firstly a military port, barracks and industrial area (it still is) but housing has expanded rapidly since the 1980's.

 

Come to think of it, Southampton is a larger version of both Blackfield and Marchwood, although I hate, no 'HATE' Southampton City Council for what they have done to the city centre. Southampton is an authentic medieval city with much of its walls still there, but they have hidden parts of it behind ugly shops and buildings.

 

You could do a bit of research for me. Go north of the Bargate, and turn right into ?Hanover Gardens? then look behind the shops there and see how the space between them and the walls looks? I took photographs of large council bins pushed up against the walls.

 

Then the Civic Centre, which is the only attractive 20th century building in Soton, is surrounded by multi-storey carparks and appartment blocks. Oh, and Holy Rood, built in 1340 and bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1940, left as a memorial to merchant seamen I think, and now with another ugly office block next to it?

 

It's as if Soton City Council wanted to finish off what the Luftwaffe started, but it's still my home town! I don't know where I would choose to live if I was living in Southampton itself? Perhaps around the city end of Shirley High Street, Hill Lane, or off London Road. if I could afford it. You can just about walk to the city centre from those areas?

 

Why did you choose Woolston? I might have suggested Totton, which is not an attractive village, more a town now, though I think at one time it may have been England's largest village. It's got all the facilities you want, railway station, buses to Soton, Salisbury, The Waterside (where I come from) and you can get out into The New Forest by bike if you want. I often cycled there from Marchwood.

 

I have a feeling New Forest residents (snobs?) wanted their own 'New Forest' postcode. Blackfield, Fawley, Hythe are all 'SO45' and Marchwood comes under Totton 'SO40'. Brockenhurst is ?SO42? and Lyndhurst 'SO43' (I used to know all these when I worked at Southampton Mail Centre.)

 

Did you have a special link to Southampton?

[Marisawright]

Why did you choose Woolston? I might have suggested Totton...

Did you have a special link to Southampton?

 

We chose Woolston because being from Sydney, we naturally gravitated to the inner city burbs and the block was new, attractive and reasonably priced. We were advised against Totton but we would have regarded it as too far out anyway. We're learning that unlike Australia, activities in British towns aren't concentrated in the city centre but scattered all over the place, but we didn't know that then.

 

No we have no connection to So'ton but we found Bournemouth very expensive and needed to find somewhere cheaper in the South to be handy for family strung across the area from Exeter to Tunbridge Wells.

 

Conscious that we're taking this thread off topic though!

[MARYROSE02]

We chose Woolston because being from Sydney, we naturally gravitated to the inner city burbs and the block was new, attractive and reasonably priced. We were advised against Totton but we would have regarded it as too far out anyway. We're learning that unlike Australia, activities in British towns aren't concentrated in the city centre but scattered all over the place, but we didn't know that then.

 

No we have no connection to So'ton but we found Bournemouth very expensive and needed to find somewhere cheaper in the South to be handy for family strung across the area from Exeter to Tunbridge Wells.

 

Conscious that we're taking this thread off topic though!

Who cares about going off topic! I've had the same arguments with people on the Tottenham group I frequent with them saying "What has that got to do with Tottenham? "

 

I'd like to take issue with this people who advised you against Totton! It is only a walk over the Test river outside of the Soton boundary!

 

I liked Blackfield when I lived there but it is too far from Soton. Actually you might have liked Hythe with its ferry link to Soton. Have you been there yet?

 

I grew to like Marchwood, four miles north of Hythe and four south of Totton.

 

Totton being at the top of the Waterside is in a good position. It's not a pretty town but it has everything you want.

 

I am unable to be unbiased! I know The Waterside. I don't know Soton!

[Slean Wolfhead]

There's only one railway line from Sydney to Wollongong and it stops at every small town, so just look at the station names and you've got it. Sydney CBD to Wollongong is two hours on the train, I can't imagine commuting further than that!

 

The South Coast is lovely but generally a lot more expensive for housing than the Central Coast, until you get past Wollongong.

 

Once you get south of Wollongong it's stunning, and the further you go the less people..probably culminating way down at Merimbula and Eden which are pretty mindblowing but quiet places. It's not commutable distance though.

I looked at the rates and owners stats last year and a startling number of properties are owned by people with Canberra postcodes....a quick bolt across country for a weekend at the beach.

[MARYROSE02]

Once you get south of Wollongong it's stunning, and the further you go the less people..probably culminating way down at Merimbula and Eden which are pretty mindblowing but quiet places. It's not commutable distance though.

I looked at the rates and owners stats last year and a startling number of properties are owned by people with Canberra postcodes....a quick bolt across country for a weekend at the beach.

Isn't Batemans Bay "Canberra on Sea?"

 

There is a line of flame trees on way to Bronte which make me think of driving south.

[Slean Wolfhead]

Isn't Batemans Bay "Canberra on Sea?"

 

There is a line of flame trees on way to Bronte which make me think of driving south.

 

They call it that, but I've never liked it...feels like a tatty old Brit resort from the 60's. You go to it and then turn left or right to get somewhere else....decent supermarkets though.

[vickyplum]

There's only one railway line from Sydney to Wollongong and it stops at every small town, so just look at the station names and you've got it. Sydney CBD to Wollongong is two hours on the train, I can't imagine commuting further than that!

 

The South Coast is lovely but generally a lot more expensive for housing than the Central Coast, until you get past Wollongong.

 

Just for the OP's reference, Wollongong to Sydney by train, does not take two hours and does not necessarily stop at all stations. If you look at the timetable, the morning and evening peak trains take 90 mins, only stopping at Thirroul, Helensburgh, Sutherland, Hurstville, Wolli Creek and then Redfern into the city. Some services stop at Oatley but not all. Yes there are the slow trains that stop everywhere, but no commuter into the city would bother ever catching one of those!

 

See http://www.sydneytrains.info/timetables/timetables_by_line.htm#landingPoint

and chose the South Coast line for details.

[MARYROSE02]

They call it that, but I've never liked it...feels like a tatty old Brit resort from the 60's. You go to it and then turn left or right to get somewhere else....decent supermarkets though.

I would not call it tatty! Nor does it remind me of any English seaside resorts in the 1960s. I've stayed there a few times. I would not be disappointed to spend a week there. Much the same as Merimbula. Im trying to think of a comparable POMMIE resort. Budleigh Salterton perhaps? I dont know why I thought of that?

 

My tastes are prob suspect! I liked Newquay! And St Ives, and Sidmouth, and Bude, Port "Clunes". I like ' em all, except maybe Minehead and Barry.

 

There's another place or two but I can't think of them. I loved The West Country and (Old) South Wales. Tenby? There's a place south of Liskeard? I liked but did not stay.

 

I ll never leave Sydney to be honest. I'm not retiring to some boring Club 55 to. Play bowls and golf and bingo!

 

God, I'm already six years past joining Club 55!

 

Where are you all planning to retire to?

[MARYROSE02]

Just for the OP's reference, Wollongong to Sydney by train, does not take two hours and does not necessarily stop at all stations. If you look at the timetable, the morning and evening peak trains take 90 mins, only stopping at Thirroul, Helensburgh, Sutherland, Hurstville, Wolli Creek and then Redfern into the city. Some services stop at Oatley but not all. Yes there are the slow trains that stop everywhere, but no commuter into the city would bother ever catching one of those!

 

See http://www.sydneytrains.info/timetables/timetables_by_line.htm#landingPoint

and chose the South Coast line for details.

I admit I don't like commuting but I was talking to a guy from Blue Mtns and he said he just slept to Sydney.

 

But one and a half to two hours a day each way!? What a waste of a day? And on top of eight hours Min work? I guess it's much the same if u r commuting into London from somewhere like my hometown Southampton? Half an hour from my village to Soton station. 70 Min to Waterloo, then the Tube.