Hopefully coming to Adelaide

Hello, I'm new to this forum, my hubby and I travelled to Oz in 2007 and went up the East coast (though didnt go to Adelaide!) worked for 6 months in Sydney; However, we are in the process of getting our Visa and looks like it will be Adelaide - we are 30 and 32, have a 9 month old baby and any advice at all with regards to work/areas/schools etc. would be VERY much appreciated! My hubby is a bricklayer and I have worked in admin though a stay at home Mum at the mo. Thanks in advance!

If your husband is a bricklayer, then he will be working all over the city probably, so the best thing is to research the different areas of Adelaide to see what is on offer. Perhaps think about the lifestyle you are after and how much driving you wish to do to get to places. There are plenty of nice areas all over Adelaide with good schools and facilities, it just depends what you are looking for.

Thanks very much for that, we would rather not live in the city centre, if we could live within a 40 minute commute to the centre pref in the country or near ish to the sea then that would be fabulous (though may be asking too much!) Having some sort of greenery around is important to me though! I've heard that Elizabeth isn't too nice or is that just rumor? Many thanks in advance!

we are 25 mins away from Southampton in the UK too!

Plenty of places offering greenery (although it can be yellow/brown at times!) no more than 40 mins from cbd. A good starting point would be to do a search of the various towns in the hills - try Stirling, Hahndorf, Bridgewater, Mt Barker, Nairne, Littlehampton, Woodside, Meadows, Echunga etc.

Jim (up in the hills!)

Thanks so much for that - I've had a look on lots of different rental companies for properties but without knowing the areas it's a bit or a mystery! How far away (roughly) is Mt Barker and is there good transport to the hills?

I'm happy for yellow/brown greenery! Living 'up in the hills' sounds lovely!

Everywhere on that list is no more than 40 mins to Adelaide CBD (some quite a bit less, such as Stirling). CBD to Mt Barker is at the 40 mins end of the scale. There's a very good road route (the freeway) and public transport is primarily bus for the towns around Mt Barker, but there are train services for some places (Glenalta, Belair, Eden Hills, Coromandel Valley etc).

There are a lot of lovely places, but you'll want to balance that with things like bushfire risk when making a decision.

Jim

Mt barker expansion was finally approved this morning. 1000's of houses, Plenty of work for a bricky from next year at a guess.

Thank-you very much for that Jim and Adel - had not even considered bush fires at this stage! Are they a real problem over there? So thankful to you for pointing that out! Also, absolutely fantastic news about the go-ahead for housing (well - for bricklayers anyway!) Thank-you so much for that info, I have looked it up on Google for some more info so great news for us!

Thank-you very much for that Jim and Adel - had not even considered bush fires at this stage! Are they a real problem over there? So thankful to you for pointing that out!

Well as soon as you start moving beyond streets full of houses to towns surrounded by fields/paddocks/woodland etc you increase the likelihood of facing a bushfire at some point - this is the case in most of Aus.

The bushfires of Victoria two years ago could just as easily have happened here (try searching for 'Ash Wednesday' that happened in 1983, where half a million acres burned in SA, and about the same in Vic, and many died), and unfortunately it's a case of when, not if, it happens again.

Some places are more prone to fires than others, obviously, and some suburbs/towns have very limited exit routes - one road in and out, more often than not winding with trees on one side and a sheer drop on the other ... just the sort of route you'd rather not face in thick black smoke (and where one fallen tree across the road means no escape). We looked at quite a few really nice properties but ruled them out because of this.

It's about balancing what you want out of where you live against the risks of living there, but it's something to be aware of.

Jim

The Adelaide hills are beautiful to visit, go for drives and see their beauty, but I would never live in the hills. Bush fires are a risk in the heat of Summer but the sad thing is, they are usually started by firebugs (louts, idiots, morons) and when it is very dry in the Summer, they quickly spread. See this.

Pom

Thanks all for the info on bush fires, I was really looking into the Hills as somewhere to live but the thought of fire just scares me so will continue looking elsewhere! Any suggestions always welcome and many thanks again for such valuable advice!

Don't let it put you off too much - just don't be blase about it if you're in a hills area, and follow the instructions about precautions etc. Going from recent events, flooding on flatter areas or a tsunami on the coastal plains are just as much of a concern!

We're on the edge of the hills but I've never felt threatened at all by bushfires. And we get beautiful gully breezes in the summer too.

hi im a bricky also and live in hallett cove, 30 mins from city, yet on the coast and a fair bit of countryside around us... plenty of work too, all withen 30 mins of travel

Thanks for that - all these different things to think of! Can't believe how useful this forum has been! Glad to hear these is lots of work for a bricky too, do you know what the average wage for a bricky is in Adelaide? I've looked on a coupld of sites but the average wage seems to be huge! Are you enjoying it in Adelaide? How do you find the heat working as a bricky?

The Adelaide hills are beautiful to visit, go for drives and see their beauty, but I would never live in the hills. Bush fires are a risk in the heat of Summer but the sad thing is, they are usually started by firebugs (louts, idiots, morons) and when it is very dry in the Summer, they quickly spread. See this.

 

Pom

I really don't think it's about avoiding a broad region such as the hills, but about weighing up the risk in any given locality (with the added difficulty that fire doesn't behave in a logical way once lit, but moves haphazardly, generating its own wind, destroying what it fancies and leaving the building next door totally undamaged ...) If you avoided regions with fire prone areas then you'd need to rule out the Barossa, Victor Harbor, McLaren Vale, Willunga (in fact, most of the Fleurieu Peninsula), Clare Valley, Port Augusta and all its surrounding area, KI (which has battled a fire just this week), and ten of the metro council areas that have fire action plans because of their increased fire risk.