berwickisok

A lot of good walks by lakes and rivers in the town, good local primary schools including a Catholic school. Your kids can easily get bus services to Geelongs private high schools, albeit Lara secondary is good for a public option.

You have the option of working in Geelong (18 minutes to CBD) or Melbourne. The train is Vline (get to Melbourne in as little as 45 minutes) and it is zone 2, about 1/3 the cost compared to Geelong stn to melbourne. You can also still find a park at Lara stn which has a huge car park.

It's also a short drive to Avalon Beach, Moorpanyal Park, the You Yangs and Serendip Sanctuary. 10 mins to Avalon Airport and 45 mins to Tullamarine Airport.

There are good day trip options, of course there's Geelong (and nearby coastal towns). There's also the great ocean road, the otways, and going north theres Daylesford and the Macedon Ranges. Werribee Mansion and Werribee Zoo are nearby Melbourne options.

There is a Coles and Woolworths locally, a few cafes and restaurants but not too many local shops. It's a 10 minure drive to Corio shopping centre or 25 to Werribee Plaza. There are some nice local parks, sports facilities and a big public pool.

I like the character of the town generally, there are a mix of houses from the 80s, 90s , 00s, 10s right up until today and there are some well designed newer estates.

I grew up here and still visit family here regularly.

There are a number of good qualities to the town:

*Old Berwick is green and leafy and has a nice heritage feel to it, including the main street.

*Most of the newer areas are also quite decent aesthetically.

*Wilson Botanic Park is one of the best public parks in Melbourne, there are also other nice parks in Berwick and nearby.

*Berwick does well for primary schools.

*It also has a hospital, not sure how good it is.

*It has a good market.

*Quick access to fountain gate, one of the biggest shopping centres.

*I think it does pretty well for crime.

*There is a large tafe.

Now the draw backs:

*There aren't many local jobs, it's far from the city and traffic is bad going elsewhere, especially on the Monash in peak times. The traffic in areas will get much worse too due to the number of growth area estates approved but not yet fully developed near to Berwick, especially along Clyde road.

*Train station car park totally full from super early. It will take an hour at least to get to the city.

*Restaurants/cafes are generally not great quality and overpriced. Variety is modest. For instance although there are over 40k residents in Berwick there's no Vietnamese restaurant at time of writing.

*Lack of pubs/bars, and the few that are there aren't great. Most people travel to the city for that.

*There are much better areas for high schools. Berwick Secondary is (or was) a rough school. Not sure if the elite private high schools are good but not accessible to that many. The lower end private and Catholic schools - Beaconhills and St Francis, don't get very good results (look them up on myschool) and are not great value for money.

*One small university there that the locals mostly don't want to go, it was previously a Monash but it always had low demand and so was sold to Federation Uni. It also doesn't offer many courses. If you go to uni, you'll probably have to travel quite far.

Overall, I think it's a decent place to live if you have a secure local job that doesn't require access to the Monash freeway, you value it's good points, you are 30+, have a young family and have enough money to send your kid to a private school when they reach that age. Older teenagers/young adults and singles may find it a little boring.