Melbourne suburbs

Visited several Melbourne suburbs and primary schools but except for a few the rest are already starting to blur in the background. I really have a horrible memory so this post is for future reference before I forget everything.

Cranbourne. Roads were undergoing repairs. Cranbourne Park was being built or extended? In other words, I happened to visit when a lot of construction seemed to be going on or maybe I was still in Singapore. The primary school gave off a positive vibe and the neighbourhood around the school seemed decent. Houses looked well maintained generally. Quite a fair bit of traffic.

Hampton Park. Ranks quite highly on homely.com.au but I failed to take any positives from the visit. There was an overriding hum to the entire visit which we later worked out to be the noise from vehicles on the nearby freeway. Maybe we didn't see enough to do it justice.

Frankston. More crowded than I thought it would be. Lots of traffic. Kids, especially S, liked the primary school. I liked that it was near the beach. The neighbourhood around felt safe enough with plenty of amenties. Had a nice morning at the park feeding the seagulls and ducks. Houses are of the mature kind.

Mooroolbark. This was the one place that captured my heart. School was rather rustic but so peaceful. We happened to be there during recess? The children were playing and it was good to hear sounds of laughter. Neighbourhoods nearby gave off a very positive vibe. Honestly speaking, this was the first suburb that helped convince me that I might be able to settle in Melbourne.

Lilydale. Not for me. D liked the place though he wasn't able to tell us why. The rest of us felt that it was too industrial. There were plenty of amenities so no complaints there. Houses also tended towards unit housing, We really spent a fair bit of time driving around the area and getting out, walking around but it never felt right.

Epping. The main reason I am typing this post. We all liked it enough for it to rank highly on our respective lists but neither of us could recall enough about it to explain why. Kind of like the nice guy or girl you met at a function but you cannot, for the life of you, recall anything about them a few days later.

St Albans. Another surburb that did not really click with us. Wife and I liked the school. It looked newly built or well maintained but the kids begged to differ. Neighbourhood was decent but seemed penned in by highways.

Tarneit. We liked the neighbourhood. It is a still growing suburb with more amenities coming up. School is a combined primary and secondary which I think would be great for the kids. Generally appealed to all of us. We spent some time in the parks there just to get a feel of what it was like.

Werribee. Some rather unique attractions as in the Aquatic Center and Open Zoo. Plenty of traffic. Visited one beach (maybe it was the wrong beach) but we were left wanting for more. No lack of shopping in the area but that's not what I am looking out for. Werribee placed in the middle in most of our lists. I liked that the primary school had a garden patch in which the students helped out in. I did not like that while I was there I was worried that the car would be broken in to. No. It wasn't broken in to, it was just me being worried but I didn't get that feeling in any of the other suburbs we visited. I put that down to the guy who was cycling back and forth down the street while we were there.

Have to remember to do better when we go to Perth. Perhaps with the help of some photography.

That said we felt safe in all of the suburbs and they all have their own plus points.