My first impressions of Geelong: passing an orange-red brick schoolhouse; it evoked a powerful, negative reaction: partly because it looked like a Victorian prison, and partly because, as a Wellingtonian, I can’t think of any more disturbing place for children than a multi-story brick building.
Continuing toward the waterfront, we past flocks of crows; their agression and racket reminded me of two things; Ballarat, similarly infested1, and secondly that the Aussie expression “stone the crows” might be thought of in New Zealand as an amusing verbal reflex, but I could easily imagine it being the expression of a heartfelt desire.
Australian wildlife is bloody loud.
A wander about on a Sunday night is interesting; on the one hand, the waterfront is ticking over with restaurants, bars, and clubs. Not busy, but not dead. Back from the waterfront, though, it’s as quiet as any provincial town on a Sunday: restaurants winding down, little else open, and a few lonely bogans in their hot hatches and Aussie eights.
Returning to my hotel, after a diversion to the 7-112, I notice the warmth as I walk down the footpath; long after the sun has gone down, Geelong’s brick buildings radiate the heat of the day.
-
Although I’m given to understand I should be cautious about drawing comparisons between the two cities, unless they are enourmously prejudiced against whichever one of them one is currently not in. ↩︎
-
Dairys, convenience stores, call them what you will, Geelong does not have the infestion of the things that Wellington does. ↩︎