Life without Wal-Mart, Starbucks and the others
Hard to imagine, huh? What do you get? You get nice little towns with essentially all of the store fronts occupied. Cafes, nice shops of all kinds, restaurants, brew pubs and the like, all in use by the locals and the visitors alike. Town after town. Nothing on the outskirts except farms, bike trails and maybe a winery. Pleasant city parks, tree line streets. Maybe we have not done ourselves any favors? These people seem happy the way it is here. And, yes, they do have big box stores, but they just have to drive longer to the large cities for them. The key thing is the lack of a Wal-Mart sitting just outside most all of the medium sized towns like it does in the US.
Most every town here has an Indian Restaurant. For someone like me, that is good!
bank, pharmacy, and other shops
“Hotels” are confusing here in Australia. Yes, it might have rooms for rent, but a “hotel” is chiefly a bar/pub.
A cute way to be “closed”
Talking to a member, they need new blood. Down to 31 in the club. You can guess why the numbers are shrinking….
The Harrietville town log. Not quite as impressive as a Pacific NW town log, but I loved the wooden wheels