I live with my DS and DH in "Pretend Country". We are only about 45 min to Canberra and 15 mins to a local village. We live on small acerage and can see several of our neighbours houses. I love that my 3 horses are on the property and our two dogs (although well contained in our back yard can bark a lot without our neighbours being bothered.
We absolutely LOVE it!
I do have to be organised about food shopping and going places with my DS ....coordinating sleep times in drive times and feed times that don't occur along the road can be fun!
I grew up on a much bigger property further from town and I can only recommend the lifestyle.
Kids can "safely" run out the front, make lots of noise and generally be"farm kids".
I have to say as a local horse riding coach I have gotten to know lots of the local kids and don't know one of them I wouldn't happily spend the week with. They are happy confident outdoorsy type kids with good levels of resourcefulness and an understanding of their impact on their families. I think the negotiation to travel and visit people actually makes kids a bit more aware and sensitive to the needs of others in their families......if you want to go to town you have to fit in with a trip there or help mum out so she's got time to take you.
I personally LOVE the quiet days where I don't even hear a car. My SIL reckons it'd drive her nuts.......her kids drive me nuts so each to their own !
i grew up outside albury and really loved it. The bus ride was longish because of the route via lots of schools and we had to ride our bikes to the bus stop, but we had special school bus friends (and bullies!)
As we grew older kids really only came to play if they stayed the night because of the travel. I used to ride my bike to a friend close by too.
Dad worked in town so extra curricular things meant walking from school to ballet or music and then waiting for dad to finish, or going on hospital rounds in my ballet gear (I still blush about that!)
As a teenager it was hard, because there was planning required to do everything, and I felt left out at times, but back then I got my license at 17 and loved driving around.
I miss the country but the vibrancy of Melbourne has me hooked!!!
I live on about 80,000 acres of land.... the closest town has a population of around 50 (which includes people on surrounding farms etc LOL). The closest supermarket and next biggest town is 50kms away, it has an IGA and a Target Country and a few little boutique type shops. The little town has a school for K-7 which is one big classroom and has two teacher two days a week and one teacher on the 3rd day, the other two days per week the children (a whole 15?) are bussed in to the big school in the big town lol.
I LOVE it here, the kids love it, so much space and freedom and fresh air. I hate having to drive so far just to get groceries BUT we are so much better off for it, we used to live in a town with a population of around 9,000 and it had sooo many fast food options we were eating way too much take-out. Now we go out about once a month to a restaurant on the highway (about 25kms drive) and have a nice healthy meal out.
The good side is better eating, healthier diet and no excuses not to exercise! There is plenty of space for the kids, we aren't concerned bout security at all. It really is a stress free way of living. The down side is that the food shopping is more expensive here, but the IGA still do reasonably good specials.
I was nervous about the schooling situation especially given DS1 has ASD amongst a few other issues, but it really has been the best thing for him. None of us have been sick since moving here (with the exception of my own current issues which are not contagious anyway). The health things were a bit of a worry too, especially given DS1's history, but we've got in with a great doctor and the local therapists are not as busy as what the ones where we were living were.
All in all, we love it and the kids love it
*ETA* As a family we are far more involved in community projects too. I attended my first P&C meeting this year and in that meeting I managed to get the secretary job lol.
12 months ago we moved from the s/e burbs (vic) to a north-east city (vic, near the border) and we're out of the main town. but 'IN' town where we are. the CBD of the town is a golfcorse and a pub. Ohh and the catholic church. we love, love, love it. we're 23km from town. and about 18km to a larger smaller rural town.
Benifits - Dj got assistance due to disability alot faster, we relaxed alot more and enjoyed the 'quiet noise' we've also got our own veggie patch and chooks and a dog. The street we're in has become a second family and we now understand - indepth - the term 'down the road'
pitfalls - DH travels around an hour to and an hour from work, its harder for him to find work (unless your a farm hand or alike) we also spend a little more of fuel, but dont drive as much KWIM? where we are we have gunshots during duck huntig/quale hunting and winter fox/rabbit hunting. plus snakes in summer.
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but the vibrancy of Melbourne has me hooked!!!
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