ozzieeagle

There is more diversity in different Melbourne Suburbs, than 700ks of Newell highway. You can tell more or less which suburb you are in in most Melbourne burbs.... try that between Dubbo, Forbes, Parkes, Orange, and the rest of them. I'll give you Wagga is slightly different but thats due to Topogrophy only, plus it aint on the Newell. I've spent a lot of time travelling that route and I do everything I can to avoid it now. There are also a whole lot of small towns in Victoria that are carbon copies of each other with the Water tower's in the middle of the town and their identical Grain Silo, Maccas, Subway, KFC, Farm Machinery, Car yard, Service Station, Pool shop gateways. You get to these places and you can countdown the time to when you'll hear your first racist remark. Lack of diversity leads to fear of anything different and the proof is blatantly obvious in its bitter and twisted little pudding.

It's got a lot to do with the post war boom IMO. Where they gave the returning Soldiers land Cheap/Free ? in the bush towns. So lots of similar development happened around the country at the same time. Along with them came the very similar views that seem to have permeated Aussie country/bush society, all of this must have happened between 1945 through to 1960, because it sure feels like the views I see in these places stem from those times.

I'm still going to do that round tour around Aus in a motor home thing in the next few years on retirement, hopefully I'll find things to change my views. I'd like to put them to the test for sure.

Tasmanian towns are different to each other on what I've seen so far. Hence enhancing the feeling of wanting to retire there.


I figured this bloke must have spent a lot of time in Australian Country towns as well.... Silly bugger that he is. Possibly didnt hit the Aussie Cities. He couldn't have been to Melbourne for sure.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...nk-racist.html

OzTennis

But there would be diversity IF:

The towns were established during different periods with different styles of architecture (eg Georgian, Edwardian, Victorian etc in a British context).

The country towns were in areas of widely diverging agricultural hinterlands (but for much of the Australia discussed it's grazing and grain cropping).

Climatic differences applied and there had to be different building materials and styles.

There were strict and varied planning regulations, different ethnic groups ....................

In short you wouldn't expect a lot of uniformity normally but many of the towns were settled in the same period, there's not much variation in agriculture and climate (relatively small increase in mean temp as you go inland and gradual decrease in precip), the planning regulations aren't draconian, the 'white settlement' was by one ethnic group............

As OE points out there's more variation between the burbs of Melbourne - different periods of construction as the city has spread (more Victorian and Edwardian in inner suburbs) and different ethnic influences - more British if I can generalise in south and east, more of other types in north and west. A map of where migrants locate in Melbourne will reflect this.

quoll

Typical inland Aussie country town, hot dry and dusty in the summer. Army barracks nearby, loads of mozzies which leave nasty bites, parochial, has a swimming pool. Not that far from Canberra or Albury if you want big city.

Brisbane it aint!
What did you decide

fish.01

I agree about the Newell Hwy, hard to stay awake...worst option of the 3 choices heading up east coast...but do think in Qld/northern NSW region many towns differ significantly...Barcaldine vs Toowoomba vs Hervey Bay vs Byron vs Warwick vs Maleny vs Quilpie vs Cairns vs Stanthorpe vs Noosa vs Nimbin vs St George vs Tully vs Armidale vs Charleville vs Isa etc.... ?

Queensland has 5 of the major climate zones across the state so lots of climatic variety to encourage diversity...

ozzieeagle

Haven't driven North of the Gold Coast very often so a bit hard to comment. The Coast road from Melbourne through to Sydney is really good, with interesting towns along the way. In fact Bega, Tilba and those sorts of places are my favourite part of Aus in terms of beauty etc. This is why i'm aching to get on the road with a motor home so as to dispel what I've mostly seen of Aus up to now in the 3 decades I've been here. Even driving to Adelaide is a bit tedious, but far less so than up through the direct and quick route via central NSW, so we cop dreary to a certain extent in both directions out of Melbourne.... unless you go elevated through mountains or directly up the coast.

jad n rich

The other thing is to take a packed lunch

We broke a drive back to QLd there, arrived in town to discover the only place to eat was the R$L. $66 for 2 steaks, and I was thinking they did meals for a tenner, or so I had been told by elderly relatives. a coke for the driver and a small bourbon cleared out another $12, add a meat tray ticket and weve done a hundred at the RSL before sitting down

The meat tray was hilarious, the caller new everyone, aunty so and so, old ray, beefy george, you name it cousins, rellies, neighbours all winning assorted unrefrigerated trays of raw meat or raw chooks. Having spent so much I was expecting great things from the steak, I have a piccy of me on some mobile holding it up, a giant chunk of gristle I think it was the cows hoof, not the rump, and the pepper sauce, was sweet and sour pinky red glossy sauce.

Pointing the error out to the waitress, she reassures me thats the way the locals like it and if I dont could she scrape it off?. We are now in fits of laughter, and broke as we purchased another round of drinks and a ticket in some local charity. Go back up to the counter and the chinese chefs angrily take back the hoof, while giving daggers at me. I wonder if the chinese menu might have been better, the waitress wont refund the steak cost but offers me a coffee instead. It arrives with a minty on the side.

We left broke and starving, but probably would have laughed more than a couple of tickets to the comedy festival. Declined trying to find a motel there after that. I am sure the next place we stopped was armidale, it was fantastic and bought a load of antiques from some elderly man whos wife had sadly died and he wanted to sell up and move on). Lovely man, and a lovely full cooked breakfast for $7 in the beautiful main street, winter too, it was so cold and beautiful.

Wagga wogga certainly has its own special charm.

OzTennis

Unlucky - you picked the #55 of 125 Wagga eating establishments on TA but I guess if all the others were closed the RSL was the only one.

ozzieeagle

I've won a raffle, a meat tray in one of those out of the way places..... Fish Creek down near Wilsons Prom to be exact. Boy do the locals give you daggers.

jad n rich

126 actually. Did you miss rosies tea house yogies yogurt or subway? back to a hot meal mid winter Sunday afternoon locals call the rsl.

DanSolihull

I've put pen to paper on the Contract, my job in Brisbane has finished and this is the only firm offer I've got so I'll go down and if I hate it hopefully something comes up in a City in the New Year, happy to give it a go for 6 months and if I don't like it I can move on.

I'm pretty lucky that I'm single with no commitments so can move freely at the moment, I do love Brisbane and Melbourne though but I've never lived in the Country before.

Kim67

Good on you. I hope it works out.

OzTennis

Geez they've added one since a few days ago, it's even less of a one eating establishment hick town than you were making out.

ozzieeagle

Good, if you get into synch with the locals, you'll find it extremely friendly.

Partner finding territory

OzTennis

X2 Good luck.

Kim67

That's what I was thinking - the girls in town will be ecstatic having a new man in town.