MEL-SYD in Y is a no brainer. Indeed it's a waste in C (specially with the crap QF called food I had the other month!). The snack box would be better!

Now, my wonderful city.. what can I say that hasn't been covered?

I disagree with whughes3's assessment of the public transport system. We have trams, trains and busses that serve the inner areas very well. Outer areas are more of a problem. I do not drive myself and live fairly near Toorak so I too know that area quite well. I have at my doorstep 4 busses and a tram, and 10 minutes walk to 2 train stations and 5 minutes walk to St. Kilda road with a ton of tram routes on it. In other words getting to/from the city is almost better by PT than by car.

As for living in Toorak - you really have to consider your income and end goals. It's a nice area, but as someone else said - better to live in a home there than an apartment.

I think your preferred lifestyle will sway where you'd like to live. For example, the trendy people live around St. Kilda/Albert Park so that might be your thing, or down at Port Melbourne (Beacon Cove) in a nice apartment (I have a friend who just moved down there and she loves it). Other trendy places to consider are Carlton (cafes, italian food, near the university) and Brunswick etc. Generally the eastern suburbs are considered the better parts to live in, so if you can't afford (or don't want) something so inner, say Surry Hills, Kew, Box Hill might be options (though that is getting out a bit0. Of course if your workplace is not in the city area that may well influence what area you choose to live. Considering golf (which I don't know a lot about) perhaps living closer to some of the courses down at the pensula would be an idea, though that would mean more travel time to the city.

As for social life.. Melbourne's got it all. If you're not a sports lover (note, if you move here you *M U S T* pick a footy team to barrack for - even if you don't care you will be looked at oddly if you don't have one - it's usually a good topic of conversation in the office!). If you're into Theatre, Music, Art there's a great deal of good stuff here: concert hall, arts centre, playhouse, theatres, national gallery etc. Lots of cafe life - specially st. kilda, carlton, southbank (near the city) etc. Even the casino if that's your thing (it's notmine).

Oh, weather: average winter say 0C->10C and summer 15C->32C (though it has got to 45C in extremes and we can have streaks of days over 35). No snow though so nothing like ZRH

Feel free to ask us more questions when your plans come together - I'm sure we can continue to give you more opinions and possibly conflict with eachothetr to make it even more fun!