Young family moving from London to Sydney

[alienbats]

Me and my wife with our 2 year old DS, are moving to Sydney this month from London.
We have lived in Harrow and Ruislip area for the last 15 years and have commuted for work to Central London (Tube and motorbike).
Her new office is in CBD and has a branch in Parramatta too.
I would need advice from all you folks out there, who may have moved recently, on which areas are best for us in Sydney, based on my stay, work and commute in London from the past and also his schooling.

Don't go to Parramatta!!!!!
I live on the Northern Beaches, 30 min bus commute to Wynyard, sometimes less, sometimes more. Fast ferry from Manly is less than 30 min. If train, I would recommend Crowns Nest

Yes, I have been reading about some names and Parramatta is not on the top of the list. Its just that both these locations should be commutable if required. While commuting from the Northern side, don't the bridges become the bottlenecks, as I used to see this daily for traffic coming from South London via Tower/London Bridges etc?

Buses have dedicated lanes and trains cross the bridges as well. The Spit bridge in Mosman is however a true nightmare.
On the South shore, the Eastern suburbs are nice but someone else should step in as I don't really have advice.

In general, you should avoid the Inner West Suburbs.

Any chance of you renting an AirBnb for the first weeks so you go around and identify what you like?

We have lived in Paddington which is great but a slog to parramatta from there. Now in Greenwich which is lovely and easy train ride to the CBD and not so bad to drive to parramatta.

@KingIrving - what are the reasons for recommending avoiding inner west? Curious that's all :-)

Because the inner west can be up to 10 degrees hotter than the suburbs closer to the sea during the heatwaves. The contrast in temperature is such that very often the weather bulletin says two forecasts, one for for Sydney and one for the West. This summer temperature reached a record 47 degrees,

Ah yes of course. I always assumed that was further out - Penrith etc

Well, the further West you go , the hotter it is. It is not only the sea / water breeze, so an inner west suburb such as Balmain or another near the Parramatta river will be cooler, but also the intense housing, how much green there is, congested roads, etc... If you live in Freshwater or Strathfield, in summer, there is a 5 degrees difference.

I read an online Aussie news article a few weeks ago, about the transport issues on the Northern Beaches ( due to lack of train line). There was a picture of a long line of workers waiting to catch a bus into the city in rush hour. The Northern Beaches wouldn’t be my first choice if working in the city. Manly would be a better choice. I personally prefer the Eastern suburbs, it’s where I’m dragging DH back to live.

Manly is in the Northern Beaches