Gannin' doon Toon...

FRIDAY 19 MAY

So here we are... Haway!!

I figured that after tonight, the rest of my weekend would be a boozed up write off, so best to get my sight seeing done today. First things first though is a coffee at ‘Gloria’s’. God I love that place!! Got me own loyalty card and everything… (SAF!!) I developed this habit of enjoying a coffee and watching the rather interestingly dressed world stroll past in Newtown and I plan to continue it here! The first thing that strikes me is how pretty the lasses are, although their dress is different from the ‘Ugg booted, short skirted whore’ look of Sydney. There’s more flamboyant handbag here and lots more stocking/nettings efforts going on!! Obviously today is a ‘Leg’ day!!

Isn't it a beaut (mate) - not the type you see in the UK though!!

There’s a heritage walk here in Newcastle, which takes the interested traveller around the harbour front and up to Fort Scratchley, via the Convict lumberyard – which has apparently been excavated and is the only example of such remaining in Oz. The Convicts were worked 14-18 hours a day and were locked up in small rooms, with no heating and the rats for Company apparently.

“Luxury. When I was a boy…..!”

Newcastle was a place for the naughty boys of Sydney, so it was supposed to be hard. Poor laddies.

I also scoped the boozers here, as there a nice number of them stretching from near Fort Scratchley along King Street to the next Borough. Like most Aussie bars / Hotels, they look ropey as hell in the daytime but I was confident the night would reveal their inner charm!

Newcastle as a whole is a clash of the old-style frontier type of Australia – 2/3 story buildings, bad colour schemes and peeling paint – and the new glass fronted buildings, with a kind of Italian style brick façade which oddly works. What I liked most of all is the industrial look given to the city centre with the riveted style wrought iron walkway between the Quay and the Centre which crosses the main railway line and the various ‘industrial-style’ sculptures and structures – you can tell there has been some money spent here. There’s also a good vibe to the place as well – which you can’t knock!!

Beer o’Clock

I’m meeting the girls, Julie-Ann and Sarah-Jane, at the Brewery for 7pm. However, I noticed, when scoping it out ‘this arvo (mate…)’ that there was a Happy Hour between 5pm and 7pm – As my mate Porl would say ‘Up here for thinking, down there for dancing..!’, so I caught the ferry over for 6pm! A bit of the old Dutch courage wouldn’t go amiss I reckoned. Anyway, about 6.30, these two lasses walk in, dressed very demurely with no hint of thigh or ‘vidge’. Not normally my cup of tea (‘cos they’re, like, women yeah?!), but worth a gawp.

L-R: Sarah-Jane, 'Mick' and Julie-Ann.

You can probably guess the rest; eye contact, chat, turns out it’s Sheila’s 2 daughters!! Small world huh?! We all clicked quite well, which is a relief as neither of them was as pushy as Mum! I was worried if they were, I’d’ve been running for the door pretty quickly. All in all, I have to say it was a cracking night, they took me to a few bars, mainly at the Town end, but there were 2 I’d missed on my tour – both of which were quite trendy, dancy and wall-to-wall totty!! Always a winner. Alas though, like Cinderella, I had to ‘make like a tree and leaf’ at midnight, in my case to avoid the pricy ‘Pumpkin’ of a 48km taxi ride. I suppose I could’ve played dumb and fallen on the girls mercy but as they both still lived at home… We did arrange a knee’s up on Saturday night, as there were quite a few of them heading out for an ‘all-nighter’, which, had I been less pissed, would have prompted many musings but as it was , I managed a drunken ‘Grrrrargh, tomorrrrrra’ and skedaddled! I did briefly wonder what happened to people who passed out on the Ferry, but managed to get to the stern for some air, so all was well!!

SATURDAY

Coming to about 10 o’clock, I discovered that some selfish twat was pumping out some Drum ‘n’ Bass quite loudly – ‘doof, doof, doof’. After shouting ‘Turn that crap down’ and ‘Shut that fucking noise up’ a couple of times and getting progressively louder, I realised it was in my head. In fact, it was my head – shit – that’s bad!! I now discovered the real shit about being across the river from the main centre. I had to get over there for a fry up as there was nowhere this side of the river. Yesterday, catching the ferry was cool, today it was a real bitch!! Anyway, I could bore you all on my hangover, but you all know what they’re like, so I can fast forward to the night out…. Heh heh.

Actually kids, there’s not as much to report this night as I’d overdone it so much on the Friday that I again caught the last ferry home! Have to say though that it was cool meeting up with the chix that way and I’ll always have fond memories of Stockton after winning that beer ‘condom’!! ;-0)