op-shops in Sydney

op shops in Sydney
hi there,

You're right - furnished flats are hard to come by, although you might try www.gumtree.com.au which has accommodations listings (mainly used by Brits in Australia. They are used to furnished places in the UK and might have created a mini-market for them in touristy areas, so you might be lucky).

Unfurnished means nothing but an oven - ie even a fridge and washing machine need to be bought. Depends where you're living but I recommend the Salvos warehouse in St Peters (http://www.salvationarmy.org.au/national/). It's huge and high turnover. They have all sorts of furniture and household stuff, steam-cleaned second hand mattresses, and whitegoods, all really cheap. Also try King Street, Newtown (towards the St Peters end is best) and
Enmore Road, Enmore, which both have a few secondhand furniture and electricals shops. Marrickville is also a good area for cheap new things.

good luck!

Anna

TracyB and abbacargo - welcome to A2K

I'm just amazed the number of questions we get about people moving to Sydney - no wonder the traffic is so bad - it's all those A2K'ers mobbing outside my wndow!

abbacargo has given some good basic ideas - yes - furnished flats are hard to come by - but there are some.

I presume either you or your husband has a job to come to - and that will affect the area you want to live in - Sydney is very spread out - and 90 - 120 minutes each way commute isn't uncommon, but it is unpleasant. You may want to be reasonably close to where one of you has to be.

Give some more info and I'll have a better think

Cheers

furnished apartments and day care centers
Thanks for your responses. We are looking in the Randwick area since my husband will be working at UNSW and I'll be working in the CBD. We are hoping to enroll our older son in one of the public primary schools in the Randwick area and are now desparately trying to find a day care center for our 4 year old.

Does anyone have any recommendations of day care centers that cater to the 3-5 year olds and that do not have 2 year long waiting lists? This is our major roadblock at this time in making the trip happen and we really need help!

We've contacted the centers at UNSW and all have quite a long waiting list. BTW, our kids are bilingual (French and English), so ideally, a center that has some sort of foreign language offering would be attractive to us.

Thanks!

Tracy

sorry, TracyB, pre-schools are a bit outside my ken!

But a heap of rental accommodation around UNSW - see Kensington, Maroubra, etc. as well. And easy buses into the city.

Have you got any contacts at UNSW? - house-sitting/swapping may be an option for you. I'm sure academics regular go overseas for sabbatical etc. That might be a cheaper option, you just get to look after the pets and garden and pay the bills, but no rent. If they put the staff rag up on the web you might find it has classifieds - in fact I'm sure there's a web site for house swaps and house sits.

Randwick is in what is known as the Eastern Suburbs, and Randwick is a cheaper part, about 2 km from Coogee Beach and not much further away from the (in)famouse Bondi. The commute to the CBD isn't too bad - maybe 20 minutes on a bus (the 372!).

I recommend the Nepalese restaurant. And Balzac is overrated (I've got friends and family in Randwick).