Hawkeye, take a look at this thread to get an idea of how far you need to go to get away from the lights .
http://www.iceinspace.com/forum/show...=&threadid=555
I know its not an easy thing to find a suitable dark sky site.
My little spot is off the side of a quiet dirt road about 10 min out of Cranbourne. Dark enough to spot galaxies, but the north western aspect still suffers sky brightness. You really need to be right away from Melbourne for dark skies.