Hi,

Anyone know anything about Gladstone?

My wife has been offered a job there. Just want to know what it's like for lifestyle and jod opportunities for me (accountiancy/bookkeeping).

Any help much appreciated.

PS Also got 2 dogs. What's it like for off-leash areas etc

Heavily industrialised with coal terminal, aluminium smelters, largest powerstation in QLD, cement works and potentially up to 4 LNG plants in the near future. Rentals are fairly cheap, in fact there was over 300 available on realestate,com.au the last time I looked. Due in no small part to the expected boom not happening yet, and RioTinto postponing a large part of their smelter expansion last year. Easily possible to get 10-20% off advertised price.
Shopping is poor, in fact its crap.Think BigW and Kmart as the 'best/only' options for clothes shopping. Buying half decent mens clothes is actually impossible. 1 Coles, 2 Woolworth supermarkets none of which are open on Sundays. Harvey Norman, Bunnings, and BCF are open all week. Of course all the bottle shops, pubs and fast food joints are open on Sundays which may give you an what some peoples priorities are.
Few pubs, couple of 'nightclubs', 1 strip joint, piss poor selection for eating out (steak and chicken parma sort of sums them up).
Golf course, cimema, good fishing if you have a boat, don't know about dogs off leash ( I thought that wasn't allowed in QLD but am probably wrong), but there are plenty of them about.
To sum up : lifestyle is poor to average in my opinion.
Job opportunities for bookkeeper would likely be limited.
I can't find much about Gladstone which is positive to be honest, other than your wife having a job offer.
It's what comes to mind when people talk about QLD being 20 years behind the rest of the country. Its certainly not somewhere I'd come for the lifestyle, but then neither are large parts of Sydney.
Basically its not for me, but others might love it.
I'm moving away as soon as work situation allows, and don't plan on coming back.

Not to mention my sister lives there. I would rather move to downtown Kabul than live anywhere near the bitch.

When I was driving around Queensland somebody told me to go to Gladstone on my way south as 'it's really nice'.

I drove through it, past the power stations, metal (was it nickel?) smelters, heavy trains rumbling around. I went through the town centre and thought 'is this it?'. I didn't stop, just kept driving!

Tannums quite nice though to be fair.

I was there last year with work. It is industrialized but that means jobs, and hence probably the job offer. You don't have to go far for some beautiful scenery.

Keel

I loved Gladstone when I went