Tell me about Adelaide

[Sibble]

DH has just been made redundant again.... We are currently in Auckland (have been for 10 years) Dh is kiwi and I am from the UK. He has been approached about a job in Adelaide. I spent a very brief week there over 20 years go and he has never been.

So... can anybody tell me, what is the cost of living like, lifestyle, schools (DS1 is currently studying Cambridge and I would like to continue this if possible), commute times to city, good areas etc etc....

It is a huge move for us as we have already relocated once from UK to NZ, have 2 houses here, a good lifestyle, love the beach, outdoors lifestyle, have friends and I have just got my foot back on the career ladder after taking time off when the dss were young.

Any information would be great. Very early stages as DH has to have various skype interviews etc...

TIA

[saffronwblue]

Hi Sibble
I grew up in Adelaide, now live in Melbourne (after many years in other countries) and go to Adelaide several times a year to see friends and family. Have had a discussion with DH for 15 years about whether we should move there! There are a couple of MN posters who live there. People tend to say the following:
Pros: great manageable size, beaches, hills, wineries in easy reach
housing cheaper than Sydney and Melbourne, good schools depending on areas, great restaurants, cafes and the wonderful Central Market. Easy commutes to the city.
Lots of events - Womadelaide music, Arts festival, fringe festival, lots of sport
2 excellent universities and 2 Ok ones. Good schools, good hospitals.
Cons - some people think that culturally there is not enough on. My experience is that my sisters see more theatre and live music in Adelaide than I do in Melbourne.

• very hot dry summers with a few days at least every year at 40 or above. Surprisingly cold winters and houses are not always well heated.
  
• workwise there are not many head offices there. Tends to be a bit of a corporate outpost.
  

Nice suburbs are the inner north - North Adelaide, St Peters or the inner east- Kensington, Magill, Norwood or the inner south - Unley, Parkside. There are some pretty dreary outer suburbs. The hills are lovely - Crafers, Mt Lofty etc but you need to have a fire plan.

[galaxydad]

Hi Sibble,
I echo what saffron has already said. I grew up in Adelaide and that is good advice.
Parts of the western suburbs are quite nice too and probably not as expensive as the inner suburbs mentions, apart from Glenelg which is prime real estate.
There are also good areas in the outer northern and southern suburbs if you seek them out with some large pockets of expats living there.
Public transport is good but it's mainly buses with the trains heading further out, I guess it depends where you live but in my region it was all buses.
Again for times a lot will depend on where your husband will be working and where you will be living.
Is his offer in Adelaide CBD or another suburb?

Lifestyle is pretty good I'd say, you can make of it what you want. You would have total freedom in being able to do just about anything you want if you love an outdoors lifestyle.
Plus the cost of living in SA is generally lower than most of the country but the overall cost of living in Oz is high these days.

[lulalullabye]

We live in Adelaide. We spent a year in Melbourne and Adelaide for us far outweighs Melbourne. We live in a suburb called Burnside which is kind of in the eastern foothills.
Adelaide is a much easier pace of life that other cities. You can drive into the city at any time with low amounts of time stuck in traffic. The festival season is awesome with evey type of festival under the sun!!
The hills are beautiful and you can be in the city one minute and then in a national park with Koalas 20 mins later.
Our kids go to an international baccalaureat primary school and they will go to another IB high school too.
The weather is more static than elsewhere. It does get very hot in summer ie 40+degrees but only for a few days at a time. Winter gets down to about 8degrees but feels colder because of the crap heating in most houses. The winter though is very short. The new leaves will start to bud before all the leaves from winter have dropped.
We love Adelaide a lot and wouldn't live anywhere else.

[Sibble]

Thanks for the replies. The job is working on the build of the new Adelaide Hospital, which I think is in the CBD. I would probably be looking for something at one of the Universities (Project Management/Health Sector). Since posting he has also managed to get an interview which would be Auckland based with an Australian company strangely enough. Well, if we do have to move Adelaide sounds quite similar to Auckland - houses cold and damp in winter - summer lovely, very outdoorsy etc...

Would prefer to live in suburbia or by beach - we live on a lifestyle block here with acreage 9which we would have to sell) and have a house by the beach (which we would keep) but I have a phobia of snakes and couldn't live comfortably anywhere in the bush in Oz. Funnily enough as DH and I were knocking down an old shed and clearing debris last week, we both commented, wouldn't be doing this in OZ.

Anyway, thanks again, it does make me feel somewhat better that it seems a nice place. Although I love to visit Sydney and Melbourne I think I've got used to small town Auckland and don't relish the thought of moving back to a fast paced, traffic congested city. Will let you know if we are moving across the ditch.

Thanks again....

[galaxydad]

The hospital is CBD or near enough it doesn't matter and that's pretty good, being central it gives you a free choice in what direction you want to come from.
From West Beach in low traffic should on take 15 minutes to get to Adelaide and the morning commute by car would be 30 to 45mins at most, some days are likely to be worse I suppose.

If you look at the beachside suburbs from Glenelg up to Semaphore there are some good suburban areas and if you shop around you might even grab one within walking distance to the beach. Really though one is never too far from the beach anywhere west of Adelaide and can be a short car or bus trip.

Adelaide is definitely not one of those bigger cities.