CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Local Coffs export, Hughie Moey (27) says living on Brisbane’s Southside can be a bit jumpy at times, but it really is a walk in the park compared to what he’s used to.
In fact, the pubs up this way barely hold a torch to dive bars of the Mid-North Coast.
Since relocating to Logan back in in 2017 for work as a mechanical engineer, Hughie says he’s yet to experience that skin-crawling white flame of sheer and unadulterated fear that used to overwhelm his central nervous system in the pubs down home.
“Nothing like it” he says.
“Even when shits going down, it’s not really the shit that me and my boys are used to seeing”
As Hughie points out, Coffs Harbour is one of those towns where 18-year-olds don’t walk around bulletproof on their first night out.
“You ever seen a man’s head go through the screen of a Aristocrat machine?” he mutters, between cigarettes.
“I saw that happen before I was even old enough to vote”
“You ever a seen tray of pint glasses used like water bombs”
Hughie says he’s not sure if it’s the sub-tropical weather, or the sub-tropical rum that sends them mad, but something is going on in his hometown – and it didn’t sink in till he left.
“It took until I skipped north to figure out it’s not normal to see that kind of violence during a mid-season screening of rugby league match on a Thursday night”
“The streets of Woodridge feel like Byron compared to that”
“Blokes down home live for it, they feed off it”
And sadly, Hughie reckons he might be losing the ability to navigate these kinds of hyper-violent and easily escalated situations.
“I’ve gone soft since I’ve moved up here now too, I got the jitters when I went back on the Easter Weekend, which has never happened before.”
“Guess this is what happens when you broaden your horizons.”
