[Ginabridget]

Hi Duke,

I lived in Whangarei 10 years ago, it was a nice place to live, it's a small city and has all the amenities/leisure facilities that you would expect and has some lovely parks and green areas very close to the city centre and Whangarei Falls (in Tikipunga) are lovely, as is Mount Parahaki which overlooks the Town Basin.

Whangarei has quite a good cafe culture going.

As with most cities Whangarei has it's poorer areas and more affluent areas and these are pretty well defined, a lot of people move down to Whangarei from the north for work as it's the biggest city in Northland so you get a wide variety of people.

I really enjoyed the time I spent in Whangarei, I loved that fact that I could go straight out to the beaches at Whangarei Heads after work for a swim, there's access to loads of fresh local produce because of the fertile volcanic soil. After looking at property on Trade Me lifestyle blocks within a good commutable distance still seem almost affordable.

The shopping is OK (not fantastic) but Auckland is not too far away.

I'm going to be in a little village about 1/2 hour south of Whangarei in about 8-10 weeks (fingers crossed) and depending on availability of rental properties may end up back in Whangarei, so I'll let you know what it's like then.

When is your phone interview? Good luck.