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For the *love* of Glod
Dec. 27th, 2008 04:56 pmMay I never complain about traffic in Nelson Bay again.
For some explanation: I live in a very small town. Small small small town. We pick up a bit during the tourist season (ie, now), but still. The kind of town which has one caravan park and one dodgy motel, and a few B&Bs.
I work in a much bigger tourist town. Nelson Bay is about forty minutes east of the Pacific Highway's Heatherbrae junction, and abour an hour north-and-east of the end of the F3 Freeway. The main road between Newcastle and the Bay, creatively named Nelson Bay Road, is the one I have to take to get to work (or, in the other direction, to get to the airport, to Newcastle, or to pretty much anything else in the known universe). Traffic on Nelson Bay Road at the moment is pesky- yesterday and today we crawled at 15ks an hour when the dual carriageway ended. Traffic IN the Bay is a slow-moving, pedestrian-infested tourist hellhole. I've been bitching and moaning about this all week.
Today, I dropped Joel off in the bay for work, and took it into my mad little head to go into Westfield Kotara - the biggest shopping centre for hours in any direction. WHY, oh ye gods and little fishes, WHY? This shopping centre is located on the intersection from hell. To the south, Nortcott Drive joins the Pacific Highway southbound (which isn't used by tourists thanks to the freeway, but is still a major thoroughfare for locals); to the north, there's three blocks of Homemaker's Centre, also having Boxing Day sales, and you have to avoid getting funnelled into the left-turn lane too early and ending up surrounded by bedding and furniture shops. And running east-west is another major connecting road going from Adamstown through to New Lambton. Somehow, I got stuck in the middle of this intersection while all the lights changed around me. That was fun. So was fighting my way through the David Jones' sales only to find that no quality shoe companies are making low, wide court shoes. So I gave up and went to cheapie shoe stores and Target, and am now armed with two pairs of shoes, two new bras and a pair of underpants which proclaim that my attention span would be longer if it weren't for all the shiny things.
And then I got lost coming home, and once I got on Nelson Bay Road again got buffeted around in all the northbound traffic. Most unpleasant.
~
An explanation for those with the good fortune not to live in the Australian tourist belt: you know how you hear all the horror stories about Heathrow airport on Christmas Eve? Well, some people in Australia do start moving about in the days before Christmas, and Christmas Day itself usually sees a fair bit of short-distance travel (the three-to-four hour journeys). But because Christmas is also the beginning of the summer holiday season, the Wall of People starts on Boxing Day, and the hellhole is the Pacific Highway between Hexham (where the F3 Freeway from Sydney ends) and Taree (the next bigish town, a few hours north of here), with all the arterial roads running off it copping their fair share. The radio tells me that there's been 20km traffic jams around Bullahdelah (about an hour and a half north of here), and the Karuhah Bypass (which was supposed to speed up the highway traffic) has ground to an absolute halt several times today. The police are swarming everywhere and deducting double demerit points for all kinds of things (ahaha and guess who forgot to take her license to work with her yesterday?), and for the next two weeks the local TV stations will keep up Holidy Road Toll stats with morbid glee.
I don't think any of you aussie people are stupid enough to go travelling at this time of year, but if you do: for the love of glod stick to the mountains wherever you can. And now, I'm off to get dressed and get back into the car and head for work...
For some explanation: I live in a very small town. Small small small town. We pick up a bit during the tourist season (ie, now), but still. The kind of town which has one caravan park and one dodgy motel, and a few B&Bs.
I work in a much bigger tourist town. Nelson Bay is about forty minutes east of the Pacific Highway's Heatherbrae junction, and abour an hour north-and-east of the end of the F3 Freeway. The main road between Newcastle and the Bay, creatively named Nelson Bay Road, is the one I have to take to get to work (or, in the other direction, to get to the airport, to Newcastle, or to pretty much anything else in the known universe). Traffic on Nelson Bay Road at the moment is pesky- yesterday and today we crawled at 15ks an hour when the dual carriageway ended. Traffic IN the Bay is a slow-moving, pedestrian-infested tourist hellhole. I've been bitching and moaning about this all week.
Today, I dropped Joel off in the bay for work, and took it into my mad little head to go into Westfield Kotara - the biggest shopping centre for hours in any direction. WHY, oh ye gods and little fishes, WHY? This shopping centre is located on the intersection from hell. To the south, Nortcott Drive joins the Pacific Highway southbound (which isn't used by tourists thanks to the freeway, but is still a major thoroughfare for locals); to the north, there's three blocks of Homemaker's Centre, also having Boxing Day sales, and you have to avoid getting funnelled into the left-turn lane too early and ending up surrounded by bedding and furniture shops. And running east-west is another major connecting road going from Adamstown through to New Lambton. Somehow, I got stuck in the middle of this intersection while all the lights changed around me. That was fun. So was fighting my way through the David Jones' sales only to find that no quality shoe companies are making low, wide court shoes. So I gave up and went to cheapie shoe stores and Target, and am now armed with two pairs of shoes, two new bras and a pair of underpants which proclaim that my attention span would be longer if it weren't for all the shiny things.
And then I got lost coming home, and once I got on Nelson Bay Road again got buffeted around in all the northbound traffic. Most unpleasant.
~
An explanation for those with the good fortune not to live in the Australian tourist belt: you know how you hear all the horror stories about Heathrow airport on Christmas Eve? Well, some people in Australia do start moving about in the days before Christmas, and Christmas Day itself usually sees a fair bit of short-distance travel (the three-to-four hour journeys). But because Christmas is also the beginning of the summer holiday season, the Wall of People starts on Boxing Day, and the hellhole is the Pacific Highway between Hexham (where the F3 Freeway from Sydney ends) and Taree (the next bigish town, a few hours north of here), with all the arterial roads running off it copping their fair share. The radio tells me that there's been 20km traffic jams around Bullahdelah (about an hour and a half north of here), and the Karuhah Bypass (which was supposed to speed up the highway traffic) has ground to an absolute halt several times today. The police are swarming everywhere and deducting double demerit points for all kinds of things (ahaha and guess who forgot to take her license to work with her yesterday?), and for the next two weeks the local TV stations will keep up Holidy Road Toll stats with morbid glee.
I don't think any of you aussie people are stupid enough to go travelling at this time of year, but if you do: for the love of glod stick to the mountains wherever you can. And now, I'm off to get dressed and get back into the car and head for work...