Pondering on the Future

Searching for a place to call home

If you read "Melbourne - Our Home by the Bay" then you've probably noticed that we've been doing a bit of work on the house and also been taking some long weekend trips. What's behind all of this?

Well! We are looking at alternative lifestyles for our future years of retirement. Reading other people's blogs, we see many moving from their homeland to other corners of the planet. We are not that adventurous and besides, we live in a great country. Sue seems to be constantly looking at real estate on the Web and there's some interesting opportunities. Melbourne now has a population of 3 million and even though we live on the Bay which is like a great green belt but blue, the area is becoming more densely populated.

Many apartments are going up and that means more people and more cars. We've been here for over 30 years and the changes are both good and bad in our eyes. With the apartments comes a more transient population. Mentone has lost that village feel it once had. The friendly hellos are not so frequent.

That village feel is something we have discovered in our long weekends away. You may remember we spent a week in Launceston, Tasmania and although it had a population of 100,000, people took the time to chat.
It has a good range of homes, both modern and historic within our budget.

$435,000 in Trevallyn, Launceston

Launceston sits on the banks of the Tamar River

We also took a day trip down the road from Melbourne to Warragul to look at a house Sue saw on the Net. I have cycling friends in Warragul, and they have a small cycling culture that would help us blend with the locals. Warragul is a farming district with the Baw Baw mountain range to one side and rolling hills to the coast on the other. It does have a smaller population of around 13,000 and is about an hour and a half from Melbourne so its not too far to visit friends for the day.

$515,000 at Warragul and there's lots of new homes going up. The town is probably no more than a 90 minute drive to Melbourne these days.

Like Launceston, Warragul also has a great cycling culture and there are several members of the local club that I'm friends with.

More recently we enjoyed a long weekend at Warrnambool where we took in a bit of whale watching, looked at the local cafe and restaurant scene - very nice too. It's probably a bit less than a 4 hour drive from Melbourne. With the great southern ocean at your doorstep, the views are fantastic.

$365,000 in Warrnambool - seems like a bargain.

Warrnambool is by the sea which is a big plus for Sue and has a population of  35,000 so it's not too small and  has the amenities of a larger regional town.

Although not Sue's cup of tea, both Ballarat and Bendigo are great regional cities, Bendigo has always been a favorite of mine for years. We've spent long weekends in both and probably Bendigo has more to offer with the amenities. Build on gold, its architecture dates from the 1850s, Bendigo hosts many fine exhibitions and theatre. Again it has a great cycling culture and some of the best track cycling meetings draw crowds in the thousands with International riders competing in the Bendigo Madison each year.

Bendigo in the 1890s 

This very modern house in Bendigo is listed at $525,000.

However this one did catch my eye at $1,9M but I don't think the budget would stretch that far.

Regardless, we still have a couple of years up our sleeve - besides, there's much more sprucing up of our 1929 Californian Bungalow to be done before we have to decide on another place to call home.

Interesting times ahead.

We just heard from our son Mitchy and he's just posted on his blog on the first few days in India. You can find it on the side bar.

It's titled "BEST and WORST"
or
http://royalpoutine.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/best-and-worst.html