Introduction to Wollongong (Part 1)

Australia is a BIG place. There's a lot of room to get lost in a place like Australia. And sometimes not enough.

Having been born in Wollongong and living there most of my life, I've been fortunate enough to escape and see a few places on this beautiful earth now. It wasn't unil I had that I realised how large the continent of Australia is. It's a bit of a pain the arse I must say.

Living in Wollongong, about 1 hours drive south of Sydney on the east coast of Australia, is almost as far removed from the rest of the earth as New Zealand. To get anywhere in this country takes time. If you want to fly to Europe, it takes 6 hours just to get across the country before you even get to Asia. And if you have friends in other major cities like Melbourne or Brisbane, it takes hours to get to them by plane, not to mention going to the airport, checking in.......

For me, this is of particular significance as the majority of my over-achieving friends have gone on to bigger and better things in other cities. Me, I'm stuck in Wollongong for now.

This wouldn't be a problem for the average Australian because Wollongong is a pretty nice place to live. Geographically, Wollongong is situated just below where the Great Dividing Range meets the ocean - the only point on the entire east coast of Australia to do so. It creates a spectacular vista whether your standing on top of the mountains looking down to the blue waves of the Tasman Sea below, or sitting on a beach looking up. The escarpment of the Great Dividing Range runs the entire length of the Illawarra. It's steep, 300 metre high cliffs and thick vegitation, look like a wave about to rear up and swallow the place whole. I like to call it the "green curtain".

Why the "green curtain"? The term doesn't necasserily refer to the greenery of the place more than it does its people. There seems to be a 'head-in-the-sand' mentaility with people from Wollongong. They have it so good there, at times I wonder if they even know there's another world beyond the mountain tops.

When I first moved to Sydney after I finished school, I remember being suprised by how no one from Wollongong was ever prepared to visit me. Was an hours drive too far? It seemed so. I would always be the one returning to see "my" people. At first this was a problem as I knew no one in Sydney, but as a cirle of friends grew there, my dependacy on Wollongong faded.

Still, after moving backwards and forwards between Wollongong and Sydney over the years and now with the shoe on the other foot (i.e. me living in Wollongong), I can only say I've visited my sister in Sydney twice in the three or so years since she moved there. That may be in part to us not being the closest of relations, but then, that may be why we're not the closest of relations.

Wollongong, or 'The Gong' as it is (affectionatley) known the country over is fairly representative of Australia in terms of its cross-section of demographics. It has the rich and the poor, the talented and the brain-dead, the control freaks and the drug dependants, workers and bludgers (people who dont like working). There's nothing new or original about Wollongong. It's just nice. The people dress in the latest last-year fashions. No one breaks out in hort couture there - dare they stand out. The language is straight forward and simple though without cynisicm, inuendo or double entendre. There's no reliefe from the mediocrity of the place other than escaping the green curtain via the F6 highway, through the mountain range, to the great city of the north - Sydney.

And that's kinda the problem.