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 I’ve been abroad, touring the latest Wharf Revue to Wollongong, Gosford and Newcastle. Also Penrith, which is so far away I should have thrown a farewell party. Before leaving, I Googled the names of these satellite cities plus ‘gay’ to see what would come up.
Wollongong: Castro’s is billed as the Illawarra’s premiere (= only) gay and lesbian-friendly nightclub. Recently the club adopted a new look and new attitude. In September, two boys caught kissing on the dance floor were plucked apart by a security person. He told them that such behaviour was unacceptable because the club was “now mainstream”.
Still, I thought I’d give it a shot on the Thursday night. (After all, it is not the Illawarra’s least gay-friendly bar: that one’s closer to the centre of town. I know because I had a drink there on Wednesday.)
When I asked a man who runs a sex-shop for directions to “the gay bar”, he seemed stunned. I guess his customers usually just sneak around behind the beaver magazines with dark glasses and a half-mongrel. He explained how to find it, and recommended a private gentlemen’s club on the opposite corner. Even though it was only 11am, I decided to check out Wollongong’s gay strip.
The first thing I discovered was that Castro’s is closed most of the time, especially on Thursday nights.
The sauna across the road is suitably unmarked. A side door up an alley holds a faded sign, saying the place is open 10am till late. But this sign is behind a locked iron grill and four or five steps packed with trash and dead leaves. Them tubs is deserted! Another small business killed by Westfield, no doubt.
Gosford has no gay scene, or didn’t as of April 2006, and offers nothing for the horny holidaymaker except lonely beaches. One anonymous Central Coast queen advertises male-to-male massage in the local paper, but no pic appears with his ad. He could look like Jabba the Hutt with a year-round tan for all I know. It’s almost impossible to find him amongst all the ads for Asian girls, each one working to build a secure life on her adopted coast.
Meanwhile, Hunter Street, Newcastle, looks worse every time I visit. More and more shops are boarded up. There’s a disused gym next to the Travelodge literally collapsing, its ground floor a mess of plaster, foul garbage and fetid water. (It sits opposite an Asian brothel, the only building with a fresh coat of paint.)
The Cambridge Hotel is somewhere down there, but as my friend Troy said, “Who goes to the Cambridge any more?” Certainly not moi, because Hunter Street after 4pm is a no-go area, unless you want to pretend you’re in a British indie movie about a city ravaged by an alien plague.
‘Newtown: bring it on!’ I thought, as I sped homewards, only to find the Newtown Hotel nailed shut. (The Imperial is not open now either.) Shit, it’s hard to be gay sometimes!
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