Welcome to another issue of the Shit Towns of Australia newsletter. After hitting Maitland last week, this week we check out its neighbour Cessnock, and share some of the town’s best responses to our review. Plus, it’s another week of criminal masterminds and animal botherers in the Shit Town Power Rankings.
If you have mates who are keen to vote in our polls or stay up-to-date with all our content, get them to subscribe at this link: shittownsofaustralia.substack.com/subscribe
Shit Town: Cessnock
Sat on the edge of the Hunter Valley (so named because locals hunt visitors) with views to the Brokeback mountains (insert homophobic joke), Cessnock is essentially Newcastle’s Logan, or Maitland’s Maitland. The city’s name is an old Scottish word, ‘cess’ meaning ‘toilet’ and ‘nock’ meaning ‘hole’. Its slogan is ‘Mines, Wines and People’, which is a polite way of saying ‘Air Pollution, Alcoholism and Dickheads’.
With coalmining in decline, Cessnock has been forced to turn to alternative industries such as fish and chips, supplying pingas to Newcastle Knights players, and wine—i.e. churning out goon for other bogan towns. The region’s mine-adjacent vineyards are the perfect place to try some semillon with an aroma of carbon and an aftertaste of cancer. Brimming with bored bogans, bursting with bewildered boomers and surrounded by soot-coated wineries, Cessnock is what would happen if you dumped Morwell in the middle of Tuscany.
Cessnock is also the proud home of a major prison, complete with the country’s first purpose-built maximum-security unit for sex pests. Consequently, ‘Necknock’ is populated by numerous nonces prowling around the Turner Park toilets, as well as a stellar line-up of crackhead car thieves, drunk deadbeat dads with domestic violence convictions, and inbred rednecks wielding homemade weapons. In 1820, approximately 50 per cent of Cessnock’s population were convicts. Two hundred years later, the ratio is about the same.
From our book Shit Towns of Australia: The Great Aussie Road Trip, out now in stores and online.
Shit Town Power Rankings
Adelaide, SA — Vet fined for fingering dogs and drinking their jizz but not banned from practising
Kununurra, WA — 10-year-old acquitted after trying to ram cop car during stolen car chase; 10-, 11- and 13-year-old girls charged after leisure centre’s windows smashed, defibrillator stolen and rocks thrown at cleaner
Angurugu, NT — Maniac hits partner and stabs himself after she refuses to root him in graveyard
Geelong, VIC — Knife-wielding gronk allegedly tries to set cops on fire after arson attack; serial thief released from custody, immediately breaks into cars outside police station
Bridgewater, TAS — Rapper/crimfluencer arrested for incitement after mob of desperate drongos show off by smashing cop cars
Launceston, TAS — 14-year-old arrested after cops find massive stash of stolen durries; 15-year-old sentenced after robbing bottleo at knifepoint before leaving behind bag with his name on it
Gagebrook, TAS — Bus routes suspended due to constant rock attacks
Ingham, QLD — Drunk, naked old man gropes female paramedic as she provides medical help
Mount Gambier, SA — Iconic sinkhole littered with human shit during Easter
Port Pirie, SA — Still shit
I lived in Cessnock for 9 years. And moved to Millfield. 20 minutes from Cessnock. You are absolutely right. In what you wrote about Cessnock cesspit inbreeding bogans
It's interesting that the fan mail on this site always justifies the articles.