South Australians please: What's Mt Gambier like?

[Cath]

What's the general opinion on Mt Gambier? You know, the stuff you can't research / the general feel of the place
Is it a nice small town? Is it bogan-central? Is it dirty, welfare-ish and boring or clean, quiet and peaceful?

(Neka - you know the Central Coast: For comparison's sake, is it more like Umina, The Entrance or Wyong?)

[Smitty]

we moving...or visiting?

[Ratmick]

Hi Cath,

I'm not South Australian now, but I lived there as a kid for 12 years, and was in Mount Gambier all my teens. I've been back a few times, I have lots of friends and some family still there, nothing has changed and I think my opinions are still valid. How much do you want to know? I can sound like a tourist brochure .

Mt Gambier is a town of about 20,000 people situated about 30km from the coast on the slopes on an extinct caldera. The main industries are pine timber and dairy products, although the volcanic soils and temperate climate allow a lot of vegetables like onions, carrots and spuds to grow in profusion. Most of the soil around the immediate area of the Mount is a rich black volcanic loam, but if you look at the amount of pine trees you will come to the conclusion that this soil is not that widespread as pines like well-drained soil, and as they are essentially a weed you can plant them on sand and they thrive...which they have. Underpinning, and in some places replacing the soil, are metres-thick layers of grey sand, left from a shallow sea that covered the area for millenia before the volcanic upheavels of 50-odd thousand years ago. Before the Europeans wiped out the local Boandik tribe their folklore contained stories of the Mount erupting, so it's well within human memory.

The town is hilly (ok, really hilly) neat, well-laid out and clean, and normally everything is nice and green. A lot of the houses are constructed out of the local limestone (remember the sea?) which is a pleasant creamy-white colour when freshly-hewn (and full of shells) but a shitty grey if left to weather without being painted. The older buildings are built out of local basalt/bluestone and dolomite. The centre of town is low-rise (I didn't see a lift when I was a kid until I went to Adelaide on holiday) and built around the remains of a collapsed cave, now surrounded by rose gardens. There are collapsed caves and submerged limestone aquifer watercourses all over the South-East. Due to the underlying geology there aren't a lot of rivers flowing above ground and there are quite a few caves, sinkholes and strange up-wellings of fresh water. The water is hard, high in nitrates and comes from the Blue Lake. Every home has a water-softener which you need to fill with a special salt every month, and pregnant ladies shouldn't drink the water untreated. If you are allergic to pine pollen it's a bad place to be in early spring. In the height of the bushfire season, don't go exploring the pine forests on days of total fire bans, the trees are full of sap and burn like roman candles. When I was 15 or thereabouts I remember seeing the flames of forest fires 35-odd kilometres away in Victoria from the top of the Blue Lake crater .

There are quite a few primary schools, but only three high schools, one public high school in each southern corner of town, with a private high school quite close to the larger public one in the SW corner. There is a half-decent variety of shops, just as well seeing you're 450-odd kilometres from both Melbourne and Adelaide. The south-eastern corner of town is largely housing commission, so like any town, I wouldn't live near it. There are new housing tracts opening all over the place, so you don't need to. The town is quiet, there are a lot of young people who congregate in town on Thursday nights and do 'mainies' up and down Commercial Street (the main street) in hotted-up cars, but the town is well-policed and very placid and it's a good place to bring up a family. Saturday nights can be a bit rowdy, but nothing like any city, and New Years Eve everyone gathers at the main Commercial Street/Bay Road intersection at midnight and has a great time. In all the time I lived there as a teen there was one murder (and it was a domestic dispute) so it's not a violent place at all.

The weather isn't too bad, much like Melbourne's. Hot and dry in summer, and cold and wet (sometimes bloody wet) in winter. It's too close to the sea to have snow, but it does get cold. Talking of the sea, there's good fishing to be had at Port MacDonald and Carpenter's Rocks, and if you get an amateur Crayfishing license, plenty of crays.

I'd recommend the area for a family, and I would live there again as I really like the place. Generally speaking young people with any type of ambition or desire to further their education don't stay in the Mount, they move away and make their lives elsewhere. There's not a lot for late teens and young adults to look for in the way of work apart from the primary industries and allied support services. There's no university in town, the only further education is the equivalent of a TAFE. The closest uni is in Warrnambool 250-odd km away in Victoria, most of my friends ended up going there or Adelaide.

Anything else you'd like to know, including more specific info please drop me a PM.

Mick

[Cath]

Wow! Thanks for taking the time to type all that up, Ratmick! Do you work in the tourism industry???

I'm pretty sick of Sydney, and completely sick of my current job/career. I found what looks like a really interesting job in Mt Gambier and the idea of a total change of pace (geez, I sound middle-aged and I'm not even 30!) is really, really appealing.

I'm not sure how we're going to move Dave's job - We may have to restrict our moving plans to larger cities, but for now, I'm trying to explore a lot of options, as I want an upheaval.

[Ratmick]

I found what looks like a really interesting job in Mt Gambier and the idea of a total change of pace (geez, I sound middle-aged and I'm not even 30!) is really, really appealing.

I'm not sure how we're going to move Dave's job - We may have to restrict our moving plans to larger cities, but for now, I'm trying to explore a lot of options, as I want an upheaval.

No worries, glad to be of assistance

What is the job, and what does Dave do?

Mick

[aardvark]

Cath, I can understand how you'd be sick of Sydney. After driving through Melbourne the other week, people can say whatever they like about "boring old Adelaide", but I'll take boring over traffic chaos any day! Besides, I don't go out much, so it makes no difference to me what's happening in the social scene in the city.

As for the Mount, I quite like the place. It's got that smallish country town feel about it, but has plenty of facilities and is large enough that not everyone knows everyone. We head up that way a couple of times a year for the racing at Mac Park and thoroughly enjoy our time there. There are plenty of cafe's and restaraunts to satisfy most people and the shopping precinct is big enough that you don't need to make trips to the city to find what you need.

Best of all, there's a local race track and they have open days once (maybe twice?) a month and cost about $60!!!!!! Not only that, but it's a fantastic track and a large number of Adelaide racers prefer to race there than Mallala.


I'm not sure what job you'd be looking at there, but I think that if Dave was prepared to take the risk, there would be a market in the Mount for Dave to look at a number of business opportunities. I used to sell computers and network solutions for a national computer wholesaler and Mt Gambier was in my area to service. There are a number of computer stores around the area, but like a lot of country towns, I believe there is room for a knowledgeable professional to cut in on the market.

If I had to pack up my family and move to a new posting, I'd either head to Mt Gambier or the Riverland.

[Wattie]

Wow! Thanks for taking the time to type all that up, Ratmick! Do you work in the tourism industry???

I'm pretty sick of Sydney, and completely sick of my current job/career. I found what looks like a really interesting job in Mt Gambier and the idea of a total change of pace (geez, I sound middle-aged and I'm not even 30!) is really, really appealing.

I'm not sure how we're going to move Dave's job - We may have to restrict our moving plans to larger cities, but for now, I'm trying to explore a lot of options, as I want an upheaval.

oh no please dont go...

[Neka79]

yea u've got sum good replies there....

failing that, adelaide is pretty cool- i moved from nsw cos i was sick of the hectic lifestyle- i love it here... its very much like the central coast, but sum nice twisties around...lol...

[mick_dundee]

Hi Cath,

I'm not South Australian, but I lived there as a kid for 10 years. I've been back a few times, I have lots of friends and some family still there, nothing has changed and I think my opinions are still valid. How much do you want to know? I can sound like a tourist brochure .

A lot of the houses are constructed out of the local limestone (remember the sea?) which is a pleasant creamy-white colour when freshly-hewn (and full of shells) but a shitty grey if left to weather without being painted.
Mick

Read many a tourist brochure in ym time, not ONE mentioned shiity grey as a colour

[MadKaw]

hmmm, you should try the country, like out Windsor way perhaps. .... Much closer to E.C. too..

Some light reading.. An extract from "Adelaide - City of Corpses"..... (no wonder Jase is always busy....)

Laid-back Adelaide, the capital of South Australia with its population of one million, is small in comparison to most of the other capital cities of Australia. Rich in culture and beauty, Adelaide and its surrounding districts are responsible for some of the finest wines in Australia.

Throughout Adelaide, seemingly on every corner, are houses of worship of all denominations. For this reason Adelaide is referred to as the City of Churches. And they have never had to canvas for business. South Australians are notoriously reverent.

But there is an inexplicable dark side to Adelaide. Some are now choosing to call it the "City of Corpses." And it is not hard to understand why. Per capita Adelaide and environs has recorded more of Australia's most notorious crimes than any other Australian capital city. In the annals of Australia's most horrific crimes, laid-back Adelaide's sinister past (and present) makes other cities look like Camelot.

Here's just some of Adelaide's appalling track record of carnage in modern times;

1958: Rupert Max Stuart rapes and murders nine-year-old Mary Olive Hattam at Thevenard.

1966: The three Beaumont children aged 4, 7 and 9 are abducted from Glenelg Beach.

1971: In South Australia's worst mass murders, ten members of the Bartholomew family, comprising of eight children and two women, are shot to death by a man at Hope Forest.

1972: Homosexual Adelaide University Law lecturer, Dr. George Duncan is thrown into the Torrens River and drowns. Two Adelaide vice squad detectives are eventually charged with the death.

1973: Schoolgirl Joanne Ratcliffe, 11, and Kirsty Gordon, 4, disappear from Adelaide Oval while attending a football match and are never seen again.

1976-77: In Australia's worst serial murders, seven women aged 15 to 26, go missing in and around Adelaide over a 51-day period from Christmas 1976. Their skeletal remains are discovered in the Truro district in the Adelaide foothills several years later in what becomes known as The Mass Murders of Truro. James Miller is sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for his part in the murders.

1979: David Szach murders his lover, lawyer Derrance Stevenson, and conceals the body in a freezer in Parkside.

1979-83: Between 1979 and 1983 in what would become known as "the Family Murders," five men are abducted, drugged, held captive, sexually assaulted, hideously mutilated and murdered.

1984: Sexual sadist Bevan Von Einem is tried for the horrific torture and murder of a 15-year-old youth. Later, Von Einem is charged with numerous other horrendous crimes relating to the "Family Murders."

1994: A letter bomb kills Sergeant Geoff Bowen at the Adelaide offices of the National Crime Authority.

1999: In "the case of the casked cadavers in the crypt," six bodies are found in casks filled with acid in a bank vault in rural Snowtown, which leads police to the discovery of another five bodies buried in and around Adelaide. Four men are charged with murder.

Of these cases there are four that are deeply etched into the annals of Australia's most notorious crimes. They are; The Truro Murders, The Snowtown Serial Murders, The Missing Beaumont Children and The Family Murders. The Truro and Snowtown Murders are already covered in The Crime Library.

The mysteries of the missing Beaumont children and the Family Murders could have been linked by the sinister activities of a monster.

[Slow and wobbly]

Speaking as a tourist Mt Gambier is definitely high on my list of destinations for R and R. Port Macdonald is definitely something special, outside terrorist season it is dead quite,scenic and relaxing. I love that whole coastal area down there - Kingston SE, Beachport etc. Lots to see and do around there whilst on holidays, but its kind of like any major town 4-5 hours from major capital cities - enclaved. It has its own culture and time. This would certainly take alot of adjusting especialy coming from Sydenknee where everything is so cutting edge and gotta happen now!now! now!
If nothing else get down there for a visit because it is definitely worth that - Dive in Piccaninnie ponds, swim in little blue lake, get a fresh crayfish straight off the boat, see the sink holes and last but not least get a photo with Larry!

[Ratmick]

Speaking as a tourist Mt Gambier is definitely high on my list of destinations for R and R. Port Macdonald is definitely something special, outside terrorist season it is dead quite,scenic and relaxing. I love that whole coastal area down there - Kingston SE, Beachport etc. Lots to see and do around there whilst on holidays, but its kind of like any major town 4-5 hours from major capital cities - enclaved. It has its own culture and time.

That's the hardest thing to adjust to whenever I go visiting. Driving around I am sitting just above the speed limit (honest) and it's like I'm in the Grand Prix and everyone else has run out of fuel on the last lap. It takes a few days to unwind back to country pace...although it's like that where I live so now I'm used to it . It's a pretty conservative area. My high school (the smaller public one) had one asian student the five years I was there. And he wasn't really asian, his dad was english, his mum from HK and he spoke better english than I did. A lot of families in the Mount have been there since the town was founded back in 1841(?), these are the familes the streets in the centre of town were named after. That end of 'society' is well-nigh impossible to break into if you're into social climbing. Fast Food along the lines of McDonalds etc didn't arrive in town until well after I left, when I was there the current site was a fruit shop (which used to be a servo)...

Mick

[Cath]

Thanks for everyone's help - had after-work drinks tonight, so won't reply in detail until tomorrow.

Good news: I've got a phone interview scheduled for tomorrow - (maybe they haven't had many applicants!).

MadKaw - looks like I'm safely out of the age range of most victims... But that list is a bit freaky

Wattie: awwwwww. how sweet

[Neka79]

Good news: I've got a phone interview scheduled for tomorrow - (maybe they haven't had many applicants!).

wow..they have phone down there now??

FWIW its 5 min from Mac park... and half way between ade and melb (for GP/SBK, Clipsal etc) ...i kno a fella down there who trailers his bike up here every 3-4 weeks so he can spend a few days riding thru the ade hills with his mates...lol

good luck with it Cath!!

[red_dave]

OMFG!