Captash said...

Moving to Newcastle in the new year to take up a new job at the port. Have 3 school age daughters and looking for the right suburbs to begin house-hunting.

My wife's priority is trees and proximity to good schools. Whilst I share these, I also want to be as close as I can to the best kiting spots

Any tips from the novocastrians out there would be great!

Really depends on what your willing to spend I suppose, most of the places near the coast here are nice.

I live in The Hill and my areas nice, IMO Merewether and Bar beach are the best sort of places to live in Newcastle and there are plenty of good schools near there. I moved here 6 years ago so I don't know from personal experience about the schools, but I heard Newcastle grammar is supposed to be good.

The good Kiting spots in Newcastle are Nobbies in N-NE and Dixon beach (in Merewether) in a S. A lot of the flat water kiting is done down on Lake Macquarie, theres a few spots like Squids Ink in Belmont in a NW-W which are good as well as a whole bunch more down there.

Hope that helps

Thanks guys. Had a house-hunting trip before Christmas and must have looked at 20+ properties. Were only able to inspect 3 rental properties (weren't able to be there on a Saturday) and missed out on all of them, so now getting a little desperate to find a rental.

Thinking of landing somewhere around Kahibah - seems to me to fairly central in terms of good kiting, schools, shopping, beaches etc. and not so expensive.

Thanks - will do. Love a bit of mountain biking too actually.
Cheers