LOUIS BURKE | Culture | CONTACT
The Golden Age of a channel country town has been confirmed as gone forever today as a local yuppy has turned a town shop front into their house.
Two hours south east from Betoota as the crow flies, Mount Quilby has not had the easiest of trots ever since the last fleck of gold was panned.
Although the steel mill kept things chugging along for a few years, the closure in 2009 has seen the town population reduced to a third and the main street peppered with empty shop fronts.
It was for this reason locals were overjoyed when they saw construction taking place in the shop that was once a noodle bar, wood fired pizza shop and sperm bank.
“Don’t know what some of those businesses were thinking,” mused local Nel Fraser (70).
“A noodle bar, yuck!”
The familiar taste of disappointment swept the town on ‘opening day’ as it was revealed that the new shop was not a shop at all, just an open plan living space belonging to some yuppy looking for a tree change.
“Apparently they left a high flying job in marketing to come out and write the next great Australian true crime.”
“They should go round saying that after dark, maybe the murder they write about might be their own.”
But it’s not just the town’s buried-in-waiting who have taken issue with the radical change to the village centre, many of the local youth are similarly outraged.
With youth unemployment that rivals the highest in the state, many Mt Quilby youths are disappointed there will no longer be a business there that can employ even just a few of them.
“Just makes you feel sick doesn’t it, how things just change like that,” stated local youth Trevor Krisp, looking for a brick heavy enough to get through the front window.
“What kind of low life does that?”
