Welcome to another issue of the Shit Towns of Australia newsletter. This one is all about the Central Coast.
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Shit Region: Central Coast
Combining featureless urban sprawl with some truly degenerate savagery, New South Wales’ Central Coast is a rat king of shit towns. Boasting such attractions as syringe-littered beaches, copious roundabouts and shit roads, the area houses a diverse array of arseholes including tourists, old people, thugs, human seagulls and people who work in Sydney but couldn’t bring themselves to live in Sydney.
The poo in the Cenny Coast’s crown is Gosford (short for ‘Godforsaken Hellhole’), the area’s derelict CBD. Full of deros, druggos and dole bludgers, the epitomical shit town is commonly referred to as ‘Mount Druitt by the Sea’, ‘Sandy Parramatta’ or ‘Nautical Campbelltown’. Popular activities in Gosford include asking strangers for cigarettes, spray painting your name on a train or keeping your pants up with a length of electrical cord.
‘Gosford’ is also slang for a particularly short skirt, as the town is close to a holiday resort called The Entrance. Appropriately, gosfords are the standard dress choice of the town’s carefree female folk, usually paired with a thin strip of fabric as a top and no underwear, while the blokes favour Tapout shirts tight enough to show off the fruits of their disciplined steroid abuse.
Gosford is home to the Central Coast Mariners football team, who play their home games at three-quarters of a stadium on the waterfront. Due to a dearth of fans, the ground only has stands on three sides; the fourth borders a road by the sea, allowing the Mariners’ usually wayward strikers to boot the ball into the drink with unsurprising regularity.
Other crapholes along the Coast include ‘Terrible’ Terrigal, the aptly named sex offender hub Tuggerah, and the activewear-wearing single-parent mecca Copacabana (named after a Barry Manilow song). The Entrance magically transforms into the Gaza Strip annually after being ravaged by Sydneysiders over the Christmas period. A popular Central Coast saying is ‘Get along to Ettalong’ — lesser-known variations include ‘Puff a joint at Buff Point’, ‘Get your bong ready for Long Jetty’, ‘Try chroming at Wyoming’, ‘Stroke your banana at Copacabana’, ‘Get put in a coma in Tacoma’, and ‘Get stabbed 57 times in the face in Wyong’.
Whether you are an old fart wanting to expire by the ocean or simply feel like being assaulted at a beach, the Central Coast is for you!
A version of this review appears in our book Shit Towns of Australia, available in stores and online.
Central Coast Slang Map
A slang map of NSW’s Central Coast created by Topher Agar.
Available as a poster or print from our merch store here.
Previous maps in this series: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, Gold Coast, Newcastle, Tasmania, Illawarra, New Zealand.
Shit Town Power Rankings
Dubbo, NSW — Gronk charged after climbing on roof of random house and chucking tiles at cops during 22-hour siege
Townsville, QLD — Hospital nurse fined more than a day’s wages for parking in staff car park; gronk burns down sister’s house after she catches him stealing from their mum
Brisbane, QLD — Teenage shitmuppets post footage of themselves nicking pet cats
Mount Druitt, NSW — Woman charged after allegedly stealing from elderly visually impaired man at ATM
Hobart, TAS — 14-year-old girl allegedly commits jewellery heist with homemade gun
Gympie, QLD — Gronk with crowbar causes $25k worth of damage in McDonald’s after his order of 30 hot cross buns takes too long
Devonport, TAS — Grub charged with stealing $300k worth of vans, trucks, excavators and white goods
Cairns, QLD — Flight to Darwin turned back twice after brawls break out on each flight
Mount Barker, SA — Kid uses great-grandma’s cannabis butter to bake muffins, takes them to school to share
Port Pirie, SA — Still shit
lol great grandmothers cannabis butter.
I bet the school was high on that.