Gosford – Back in 10 mins

Well where do I start? Spent 3 days in Gosford last week and it was another interesting sight.
Gosford is about 90mins drive from Newcastle. Locals from Sydney/Newcastle would migrate to Gosford in the summer to take advantage of the beautiful beaches.
It was 1pm on a Friday afternoon, was warm as usual. I wanted to have lunch in an air conditioned environment. Across the road was a plaza, probably one of the main plazas in Gosford. As I approached the food court, there were 10 eateries but only 2 were open. I mean come on……..Friday afternoon, 1pm, hungry, food. Due to the over whelming selection of food, I had to settle for burger and fries.

Do you remember watching movies where the retailers would put signs out like
“Out to lunch, back in 20 mins”

Well this is a common thing in Gosford, without exaggerating; there were about 8 stores with those signs on the window. Was very amusing to me, I don’t think the locals manage to figure out why I was staring at the closed shop laughing.

Anywho, it’s only been 3 hours since I arrived back to my apartment from 4 days in Mackay. Mackay is on the Eastern Coast of Queensland, roughly half way between Cairns and Brisbane. Mining generates around AU$1.5Billion of Mackay’s annual gross product. Cash Cow?
We finished work early one night and decided to check out the night life. I think it is illegal to use the phrase “night life” in Mackay because it was a ghost town. Ended the night with dinner at hogs breath which I have to say is 10 times better tasting than any hogs breath in NZ. We jumped into a cab and my conversation with the lady went like this.

Sam: So……….Mackay is an interesting place.
Old Lady: There’s not too much to do here, although we do have nice pubs.
Sam: Really? We’ve been walking around and couldn’t find anything.
Old Lady: Well there’s the platinum which is a nice club with dancers, there’s the [Cannot remember] Hotel which turns into a strip bar at night, there’s [Cannot remember] on the corner which have girls dancing Monday, Wednesday and Friday which they fly up from Sydney and the [Cannot remember] with a pub and upstairs lounge with dancers.

So maybe Mackay can be an interesting place to be, although I did not experience it first hand. My conclusion of Mackay is every pub turns into a strip bar with dancers who fly up from Sydney.

Wow, this blog has taken me 30mins to write.

Bed time

Sam