Moving the Queensland?

We are back from our holiday in Brisbane, we went up there in February for 5 days to see what the weather was like in summertime. We are vaguely thinking of moving up to that area for the warmer climate but were concerned about the high humidity in the summer months, so wanted to see for ourselves. Only problem was, after 6 weeks of rain the week that we went it was fine and sunny.

It was a bit sticky on the first day we arrived, but I think that was partly due to us getting wound up with the car rental company. Being regular customers we get a special card and a free 'upgrade' in car. But that means a bigger car (we find it easier driving a small car, specially in the city) that guzzles more fuel. From the look on the employees face, they had never had anyone complain that the car was too big and request a smaller car before. But we did end up with our little Getz, but only in manual not automatic.

We stayed in a serviced apartment in Kangaroo Point which was great, overlooking the river. [Mum & Dad note, we didnt change our room.] We drove over the Storey bridge to New Farm to do some food shopping, then went for a walk along the river in the evening.

The next day we went for a drive to look at some areas around the city we thought might be nice to live. South of the river Hemmant looked nice, big blocks with farmland around but not too far from the city. Then suddenly it turned into housing estates with properties crammed in together against the fence.

We looked at Manly, Wynnum, down to Cleveland, then drove up north to Redcliffe / Margate / Scarborough. Joe liked the beaches there and it was cooler and windy too, but the houses were still on small blocks. We saw a development of houses at Mango Hill where one house builder said they would build on any land that we got and make any changes that we wanted, but the houses all looked so boring and standard. no unusual features.

On Saturday we drove west to Moggill, very hilly countryside about 30kms from the city. There was a Mirvac development, we like the houses which have a much better standard of finish, but they were not building any more there for the moment (maybe with mortgage rates rising?) and had some lots of land but on very steep hills that they couldnt build their own houses on.

On Sunday we took the river ferry into the city, had a look around the shops and went to Southbank for lunch near the artificial beach.

On Monday before flying back to Melbourne we took a drive round New Farm and Teneriffe. Joe got a fright driving down a steep road that suddenly ended on the edge of a cliff. There was a lot of new building and some nice looking houses. Later when we looked up the prices they were all in the million to squillion price range.