What I Love About Our New Neighbourhood
We have always lived in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, but I have always loved being near the ocean, and we didn’t want to do the full sea change thing; I still love the city, so we decided to move bayside. We bought an apartment off the plan and have been renting 500m from the site for the last year so we could settle into the neighbourhood.
Things I love about our new neighbourhood:
1. The bay is just at the end of our street, only 500m from our apartment. We walk and run along the beach path most days. Bonus: the city is still a short train or car ride away. If I run along the beach and then cut through Albert Park it is only about 9km into The Tan.
2. It’s flat, which is a relief for running and walking. Our old place was on the top of the hill, so the last part of a run always involved a steep hill.
3. Related, it’s a walkable neighbourhood. We can walk to church, the doctor and other allied health, KX pilates, shopping, a farmer’s market, and public transport. We have four shopping strips within 2.5km of our house which cover most of our needs with major chain stores, smaller boutiques, cafes, restaurants and supermarkets. We also have an excellent small grocer only 450m walk.
4. Excellent off-lead opportunities for our dog on the beach and in the large park near us.
5. We’ve found a small local church that is friendly and has a missional mindset that we are really starting to feel at home in.
So, despite a fairly spontaneous decision to move, we’re not suffering from buyer’s remorse.
7 Comments
Elisabeth
As a new reader here, I only just realized you live in Melbourne. My husband has worked in Australia various times over the years and just finished a 5-year stint working for a company based out of Sydney (we went to Sydney together a few years ago and I loved it; though I have to admit it did feel a lot like Canada – less of a “foreign” country than visiting the US for sure because of our shared influences in the Commonwealth?).
It looks lovely and it’s incredible what even a small shift in geography can do to influence daily routines. Where we live we always have a very steep hill to climb to get home. It impacts how we move around – for example, we rarely bike because it would be very unpleasant – at this stage at least – to have our kids bike up the hill and we cannot avoid having to do so!
Melissa
I would agree that Australia is more culturally like Canada than the US. More low key maybe? I love Sydney as a place to visit but couldn’t live there (the traffic); different culture too, I think. The harbour makes it a stunningly beautiful city though. Victoria as a whole would be more politically progressive than NSW and has a bigger sporting and arts culture. And Melburnians wear lots of black, especially in winter.
Yes, to not bike with the hills. We would never have contemplated bikes at our previous house. Luckily we spent summers at my parent’s house down the coast, where they could ride bikes.
Suzanne
Your new neighborhood sounds wonderful and looks gorgeous! I especially love how happy your dog looks, frolicking in the sea.
NGS
Having a walkable neighborhood with someplace my dog can roam off-leash are some of the reasons I love my neighborhood, too! We do not have a bay OR a sea, but we have a couple of rivers in our town, so we do get lovely waterbirds, which is a bonus. I’m glad you don’t regret your new home – may it continue to meet your needs and be wonderful for many years to come!
San
Wow, an apartment 500m down from the bay… that sounds lovely and like the perfect place to run/walk. I live too far inland, we have a river trail… not the same thing LOL
Melissa
We had a river trail near our old house. I think that is still pretty good, depending on the type of trail I guess. I can still run to some of it from where we are now.
Tobia | craftaliciousme
It sounds like a lovely neighbirhood. And 500 meters from the bay is so amazing. Water is so realxing.