[mum_to_cutie]

Since where already looking at Ipswich now to move to, we also found lovely houses in Rosewood and Walloon... but was thinking any further out and the trains to Brissie stopped and is too far to drive by a mile!!!
So purely for interest sake we looked at jobs in Toowoomba and ONE came up..lol
Yep only one.. but DH said its pretty much everything he does now so the job would be fairly easy to get IF he went for it...

Just to kill my curiosity... can anyone tell me about the area? good? bad?
How far away could you live from toowoomba before the travel to and from work would be a hassle?
is the roads into Toowoomba busy/a pain in the butt?
What surrounding areas are nice and not so nice?
is the living cheap or crazy expensive??

ANY info would be great, so thanks in advance

[mks81]

I love Toowoomba.We used to live in Brissie but work commuting and everyday costs got to me with driving into the city everyday.We used to live just outside and travelled from the southside into Toowoomba which is fairly easy.We had several small communities around our area where people seem to be flocking to build houses on a little bit extra land and the schools are small but very well stractured.

It is a lovely big regional city and now with 7 day trading, lots of shopping, parks, events etc.

The massive problem Toowoomba has right now is the main road into town from the East, up the range...its a killer with traffic in peak hour and pretty much always busy. If there an accident on the range, your stuck till it clears. Not much can be done until we get the second crossing and its not even on the agenda for the pollies.

My OH used to travel from TWB to Brissie weekly but always made sure he left extra early to miss the range peak times.A neighbour also used to travel to Gatton everyday and then had to travel 20 minutes south so its doable.If I had the right job I would consider travelling from Ipswich to TWB daily but it would have to be something special to do the range everyday but Gatton would be fine to travel, especially if your used to Brisbane traffic.

There is an element of undesirables around but I think comparable to most other big regional places it is still a lovely place. Cost of living I think depends on what suburb you are.It is definately cheaper such as land prices and renting just outside of town compared to some places in TWB, which is why we chose to live 20 minutes out.

There are some lovely suburbs in town but if your happy to travel 20 minutes theres northside with places such as Highfields which is a gorgeous drive back into town. Southside for the same distance is Cambooya, Whyreema, Greenmount, Clifton. Have a look at these places online.

There are good service of buses around in town but transport such as buses and trains to Brissie is laxed, one service has even just stopped going to Brissie and I found when one of our cars was out of service transport isn't that good from southside into TWB.

Library is large and great range, has one huge shopping centre and 2 large and several smaller suburban ones doted around. We used to either shop at Mt Gravatt or Carindale and Grand Central is a smaller version of them.

We have had to move further out west for the next 12 months and I miss Toowoomba like crazy.I miss the shops, the little cafes, my vintage shopping(it has great secondhand shops and shabby chic shopping) and being able to meet up for a coffee and chat with friends.

This post has been edited by mks81: 17/03/2012, 04:34 PM

[Maple Leaf]

Lots of choice with schools, but I find it just so damn cold so could never live there..., but if that doesn't bother you go for it!

I have noticed the real estate market is still fairly good for buying, but slowly creeping up. BIL and SIL are currently house hunting and are seeing some price jumps.

[mum_to_cutie]

Thanks for both replies ladies....
You made Toowoomba sound lovely! My main concerns are-
a) its a LONG way from Brissie.. not exactly a day trip in and back and as much as I want the "country life" I'm not sure how I would go that far away from decent shopping and the city etc..

b) As I mentioned we only found ONE job online suitable for DH, so if something happened with that job it would be very few and far between finding another one... BUT we would be stuck in Toowoomba and too far away from finding a Brissie job!!!

To be honest I was hoping to look at real estate in Toowoomba and see crazy cheap houses, massive big queenslanders etc all within our price range on huge land... but out of about 21 pages on realestate.com.au I found 3 nice houses and none of them were any cheaper then Ipswich or somewhere like that...
(and Ipswich is a lot closer to everything then toowoomba)..

Hmmm..... I'm so confused about how I feel about going this far out of Brissie...

[milkwood]

I am not from either place, but I will try and give you the difference. For a long time Toowoomba has been a centre. It is a destination in itself, with many services for communities around it and particularly to the west. It would be where some people drive half a day to shop, or plan a lifetime to send there children to school from the surrounding, established, and from what I hear beautiful country-side. It has history and heritage and establishment. Ipswich had all this too, but its history was built partly on coal mines and industry. The history is a very proud one, but different. Ipswich has also perhaps suffered in the past few decades for a combination of reasons, and most recently as Brisbane moves so very much closer practically services don't need to remain in Ipswich, as at the right time of day it is less than an hour to Brisbane, so everyone can go elsewhere for everything.

It will come down to how you live and how often you want unusual things or experiences. If you are going to tied up with the school run, kids activities, swimming lessons etc, there will be enough of the everyday. If you want internationally acclaimed degustation tasting menus and a range of hand crafted danish taps fittings most days the distance will really matter. Having said that Brisbane itself may get small rather quickly too. Do you need unusual things four times a year, or four times a week?

[mum_to_cutie]

Hmmm.... I plan on doing the school runs, canteen duty, teacher help in class, swimming lessons, soccer games etc etc
BUT I also like to have decent shops, good hairdressers, beauty shop, and other "me" things closely available.. I also plan on doing a few tafe courses and eventually doing some kind of beauty thing from home as part time work...

I want the country life without being too country and remote and then I also want the city shops and social life without the noise and hustle and bustle.

I liked the idea of Ipswich as I could nip into Brisbane for some me time every once in a while with my DS.... Toowoomba that won't happen! and I doubt we will ever afford to just have a night or 2 in there as we would rather spend "holiday" money on actual holidays to the gold coast/sydney or the like.

[~**SYMONE**~]

It's not like Toowoomba doesn't have the things you are after. As a PP said it is a centre for many places to the west, many of those places to the west are very well off, generally speaking, so the quality of goods and services are quite above average. It's not that far to Brisbane, when living in Brisbane we used to pop out to Toowoomba for dinner every now and then. A day trip to Brisbane every now and then is definitely not out of the question...

[mum_to_cutie]

Just thought I would update... the job turned out to be in Dalby...so we have decided not to apply! That's just too far I'm afraid. Thanks for all the comments though everyone