S..T Towns in Australia.
Mar 5th 2020, 5:11 am
#16
Forum Regular
Joined: Dec 2018
Location: ACT
Posts: 238
Re: S..T Towns in Australia.
Port Pirie has a major lead problem, and in the news for it again this week. I remember playing a rep footy game there late 60’s and their players repeatedly used me as a step ladder. it didn’t seem like a very nice place.
Mar 5th 2020, 8:03 am
#17
Concierge
Joined: Jan 2013
Location: Western Australia
Posts: 21,139
Re: S..T Towns in Australia.
Albury-Wodonga gets my vote. The latter is by far the worst, a pet food manufacturer out in the suburbs turns the town into a stinkpit when the wind blows to the west. Property values and rentals are inflated beyond belief and many locals display a smug sense of self-entitlement at their good luck to be living there.
Albury is the place where hopes go to die. The city itself is physically pleasant enough, too bad about the locals who act like they live in trees and come down now and then to gape and gawk at the visitors. True, there are good people everywhere, but in Albury they appear to avoid the CBD like the plague.
East Albury (where our friends live and we visit several times a year) is bearable (in the right parts) but Lavington gets the majority vote as the area everyone would love to see nuked.
Country towns in general in New South Wales and Victoria are cultural cesspits and many function entirely as dumping grounds for society's disadvantaged. Drugs are everywhere. The pushers do their deals openly in the sidewalks and in the parking lots and the shopping malls and the police walk by looking the other way. Our public library (in one of the major 'regional center' in Victoria) gets roasted for having only eight computers and banning online gamblers and game players. Don't get me started on the pubs. Cafes push trans fats and lousy coffee. The rest I can put up with (at a distance), but the lousy coffee... puke!!
Meantime in Sanur (Bali) where we now live, life is as pleasant as it can get. In the past year six lots of Aussies have relocated to our neighborhood and all agree that leaving Australia was the best move they could have made.
Albury is the place where hopes go to die. The city itself is physically pleasant enough, too bad about the locals who act like they live in trees and come down now and then to gape and gawk at the visitors. True, there are good people everywhere, but in Albury they appear to avoid the CBD like the plague.
East Albury (where our friends live and we visit several times a year) is bearable (in the right parts) but Lavington gets the majority vote as the area everyone would love to see nuked.
Country towns in general in New South Wales and Victoria are cultural cesspits and many function entirely as dumping grounds for society's disadvantaged. Drugs are everywhere. The pushers do their deals openly in the sidewalks and in the parking lots and the shopping malls and the police walk by looking the other way. Our public library (in one of the major 'regional center' in Victoria) gets roasted for having only eight computers and banning online gamblers and game players. Don't get me started on the pubs. Cafes push trans fats and lousy coffee. The rest I can put up with (at a distance), but the lousy coffee... puke!!
Meantime in Sanur (Bali) where we now live, life is as pleasant as it can get. In the past year six lots of Aussies have relocated to our neighborhood and all agree that leaving Australia was the best move they could have made.
Mar 5th 2020, 8:42 am
#18
Asian nomad
Joined: Oct 2019
Posts: 0
Re: S..T Towns in Australia.
I may have been a tad rough on poor Albury. After all, my friends live there, and we visit them a few times a year, for long weekends and pleasant times, mostly in their verdantly green back yard. The local pub does a decent slap-up lunch and dinner and some of the local wines deserve better than to be called 'paint thinner'. Culturally it's largely a wasteland, but geographically it has a few redeeming features, a lot of lovely countryside, and a few charming small towns with Sunday markets if one enjoys browsing tables of $15 pots of jam. Just like in Canberra during my years there, but let's not go into that.
As for Wodonga, to borrow an oft-uttered line from the Honorable (!) MP from Wagga Wagga, "I resile nothing".
Mar 14th 2020, 7:25 am
#22
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2009
Posts: 704
Re: S..T Towns in Australia.
Logan covers a pretty large area, and at least some of it (Rochedale South, Daisy Hill, etc.) is actually quite nice by any suburban standard.
By contrast, there is nothing that can save the coal-powered boom-and-bust towns of inland North Queensland, e.g. Moranbah and Collinsville. Or lead-pollution central, Mt. Isa.
By contrast, there is nothing that can save the coal-powered boom-and-bust towns of inland North Queensland, e.g. Moranbah and Collinsville. Or lead-pollution central, Mt. Isa.
Mar 14th 2020, 8:21 am
#23
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Jan 2017
Posts: 2,900
Re: S..T Towns in Australia.
Surprised by the finalists in the WA section of that site in the original post link.
Port Hedland, sure, but that one's obvious. But Kalgoorlie? It's not that bad and actually has some good restaurants, nightlife, Outback vibe and some interesting things to do. I look forwards to my visits there.
Same with Broome and Geraldton.
Port Hedland, sure, but that one's obvious. But Kalgoorlie? It's not that bad and actually has some good restaurants, nightlife, Outback vibe and some interesting things to do. I look forwards to my visits there.
Same with Broome and Geraldton.
Mar 14th 2020, 9:46 pm
#24
Forum Regular
Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 297
Re: S..T Towns in Australia.
I'm going to call it. Driven up and down the east coast several times (Carins - Bega, not all stretches at once). 90% of east coast beach towns are shit. Of these, 40% are utter shit holes, and the other 60% kind of dumpy, flat, boring and even a bit eerie.
Apr 10th 2020, 11:09 pm
#25
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Oct 2008
Location: Perth
Posts: 6,775
Re: S..T Towns in Australia.
I stayed in Geraldton a few months ago and found it very wanting. Nice in the day, with the beachside improvements, but nighttime far too many aggro people on the streets, police sirens seemingly constant and while we were there, a near riot in one of the inner suburbs.
Meth ice of course is enormous in adding to the problems of country WA. Little is done and increasingly it appears to be tolerated regardless of the problems it causes.
Meth ice of course is enormous in adding to the problems of country WA. Little is done and increasingly it appears to be tolerated regardless of the problems it causes.
