Victoria Panteleeva

I had short 6 weeks contract here.
I found Innisfail is friendly, clean and safe.
I had to walk at 11pm through town center few times after work and it was safe, birds were crazy loud at the town center. Good supermarkets, nice river and picnic spots. Friendly locals. Beautiful historic architecture.
However, it feels, that town have lack of funds to keep it going, that is very sad, because it has plenty things to see here.

I lived in Portland for few years due to work commitments. It's very nice here. People are friendly, clean, green, good clean air, nice climate. It's a bit cold at winter time , but I have central heating in the house and It was awesome.
Affordable housing, good health care, good hospital.
Great cold beaches.
However, if you are not a country person, it feels isolated.
After few years I missed my social life and activities, concerts etc. As you have to go to Melbourne or Geelong most of the time for those things as well as for specialist treatment if you require any. Its 4-5 hrs drive, you can't do it in 1 day without pushing yourself hard.
Roads outside of Portland are the worse in Australia, very unsafe. Airport exists, but you have to book in long advance to get tickets and its expensive, I fly overseas cheaper then to Melbourne.
All up is make Portland tacked away from crazy world and keep it clean and beautiful but it is too isolated for me.
Water is very mineral in Portland, I couldn't drink it either.
Overall, great memories from living in Portland.

This was our first contact with Newcastle and our fist impression. We were on a monster interstate road trip and business matter . We stayed in Newcastle for 1 week and we loved it first few hrs....Pleasant wather, nice lake, green hills etc. We thought that is a little paradise.

First things we noticed is a lot of aggressive drivers on the road. Everyone is in a rush and short tempered. They seemd to think if they glue to our bumper it would make us dissappear from the road. For a city who pride itself having "relaxed lifestyle" it was very suprising.
Then suprises continues : people are very unfriendly, suspicious and I would say defensive. It doesn't matter where you go, you greeted by cold, self-important "We are best kept secret and we like to keep this way".
I am grateful that they did not add " Go away" .
The business meeting we had was successful but again we had very unpleasant atmosphere, that requires more energy to push through then needed.
House prices are way too high for what you can get. Even Real estate agent gave us a sarcastic lecture on my question how a family of 4 can afford such a house on 1 average income if mother have to stay at home with young kids. I don't have young kids, but was curious how local people do it.
Anyway, we had our things done, and had a coffee by a beach and were ready to go.

Our impression was that lovely people on Newcastle have " Napoleon Complex ".
Aggressive social behavior compensate for something they might think they are lack of.

You, guys, need to relax a lot and stop comparing yourself with Sydney.
No one taking your city from you. You are so busy to keep it as a best secret that you didn't notice the impression you made, or you don't care.