Saturday, January 13, 2007

What are the good places in Brisbane to live for runners?

I know at least two of my beloved readers live in Brisbane. Maybe there are some other Brisbane-based lurkers. Anyway, a great friend from the running club needs some advice. She is moving to Australia at the end of February (a week after she runs Tokyo Marathon in fact). She is from the UK and has scored a permanent residence visa to Oz and basically it is a blank slate for her. If she followed the easy road, she has some friends in Sydney and could start off there. But my counsel has been, no, Sydney is a den of iniquity and as expensive as all get out. You want to follow the sun. Southeast Qld is a growth center, land of opportunity, and a pretty darn nice part of the world (you are hearing a born and bred cockroach swallowing his pride here). Carol's qualifications are in accounting, so she probably needs to head to a large center to pursue career opportunities; to me, the logical recommendation is Brisbane.

So the question I throw open to you good people is, what are the best suburbs in Brisbane for a runner who wants to be less than 30 minutes by bus from the CBD? Or at least a runnable/cyclable distance. I am asking here because Carol reads the blog and can easily pick up your answers in comments. And while her main need is advice on places to set up home, a longer bow is that if you know anybody nice that may be in a position to take on a short-term boarder until she finds a job and can get her own place, I'm sure she would be open to offers.

Brisbane readers who have other Brisbane readers, if you could post a short entry with a link to this post, it would be very much appreciated.

Over to you guys!

3 comments:

Ewen said...

Steve, the best paces are Sydney or Canberra - short easy flights to Brisbane. If you're a natural cockroach, Tweed Heads is good (close but still in NSW).

Tell her to bring supplies of Natto.

Samurai Running said...

I reckon that the best your friend could do would be to live in Bangalow, in the hills above Byron Bay and drive to Brisbane for work. I reckon that would be ideal for an "bean counter." And I don't mean the soy bean type.

Tesso said...

Inner west (eg Toowong), but I am biased :-)

Its about 4k or so to the city. There is a bikeway/walkway all the way from Toowong to the city and beyond (to New Farm), totally off road for about 8k. Public transport wise there are heaps of busses, the train, and the ferry. And two major supermarkets, a couple of gyms, lots of cafes etc etc.

There's quite a diverse population, including lots of students as the university is in the next suburb.

Oh, and its handy to a couple of running groups too :-)

I'll keep my ear to the ground on the short term boarder situation.