STOA Newsletter #80
Vote for Tassie's Shittest Town!
Welcome to the 80th edition of the Shit Towns of Australia newsletter.
After you voted Alice Springs as the Northern Territory’s Shittest Town, it’s now time to take on Tasmania. We’ve selected a shortlist of ten shit towns, cities and suburbs based on your suggestions on Facebook. Scroll to the end of this email to vote!
If you have mates who are keen to vote in future polls or stay up-to-date with all our content, get them to subscribe at this link: shittownsofaustralia.substack.com/subscribe
P.S. Father’s Day is fast approaching, and Shit Towns books and merch make great gifts for grumpy old bastards everywhere! Available here.
Shit Town: Katherine
Katherine—the ‘Top End’ town, not that boring woman from HR—spruiks itself as ‘where the outback meets the tropics’, or in other words, ‘where the drought meets the floods’. The town’s two seasons are searing heat season, when most organic matter withers to a crisp, and thunderstorm season, when the town fills to the gills with poo-brown water and crocodiles chase kayakers through the streets.
Katherine is basically a tarted-up gulag masquerading as civilisation—Tennant Creek in drag—if you can consider fortified servos, police guards outside grog shops and a poisoned water supply an improvement. Popular pastimes in Katherine include rooting on the grass median strip on the Stuart Highway or taking a dump on the footpath outside Red Rooster. Dole day sees the entire citizenry get shitfaced and fight each other, while primary school kids riddled with preventable diseases roam the streets at all hours honing their vandalism skills. The local soundtrack is feral fruit bats screaming all day and mangy stray dogs howling all night.
Lacking any significant industry, Katherine scrapes by on tourism thanks to Katherine Gorge. The dry season sees an influx of soon-to-be-missing European backpackers as well as ‘grey nomads’, grizzled geriatrics escaping the southern winter so they can sit in front of their caravans and whinge about the heat. The area’s biggest attraction is Nitmiluk National Park, where visitors can get up close to Katherine’s big hole and some of Katherine’s bush. Whoever came up with the tourism slogan ‘CU in the NT’ was clearly thinking about Katherine.
From our book Shit Towns of Australia, available in stores and online.
Shit Town Power Rankings
Rockingham, WA — 37-year-old shit stain and 8-year-old boy accused of bashing 91-year-old man
Glen Waverley, VIC — Footy player sucks off teammate in middle of pub for a laugh
Grafton, NSW — Bloke has fingers cut off in machete attack
Tully, QLD — Naked gronk caught in canefield after leading cops on high-speed chase in stolen car
Launceston, TAS — Teenage girl attacks crew during flight; woman sues Facebook group admin for defamation over claims she had sexual relationship with her cat
Queanbeyan, NSW — Police seek public’s help to catch serial doorstep pooper
Frankston, VIC — Gronks break into building site and take a bunch of excavators for joy rides
Perth, WA — Traffic offender faces same magistrate twice in one day after driving away from first appearance while suspended; school closes oval to dog walkers after child accidentally rolls in dog shit
Kanahooka, NSW — Mum tries to get out of reporting to cops while on bail by printing fake medical certificate on the back of her criminal record
Port Pirie, SA — Still shit
Vote: Tasmania’s Shittest Town
Click/tap on a town’s name below to vote. Voting closes and winner announced Monday 5/9. Only your first vote is recorded, so don’t fuck it up.
What is Tasmania’s Shittest Town?