It was freezing on the weekend
when I went out to take building site photos and we were both glad to get back
in the car.
There are more low-rise blocks
of units in Hills Street than I realised. Hills Street sits on the outer lip of
Bradys Gully and Dwyer Street crosses it and goes over the lip and down to the
roundabout at the corner of Henry Parry Drive. The park there, next to the
North Gosford private hospital, is the old Bradys Gully cemetery and some of
the old gravestones are still in it.
I usually just drive along
Henry Parry Drive, passing through Bradys Gully on my way north so I hadn’t
noticed the low-rise blocks going up in Hills Street. It’s about 20 minutes
walk from these two building sites to the station at Gosford so these units
going up now will cost rather less to buy than the luxury towers that will be
poking the sky over Gosford about this time in 18 months.
The views from the towers in
Mann Street (Gosford’s main street) will be all the way down the Brisbane Water
to Woy Woy, then Lion Island, the lighthouse at Barrenjoey Head and perhaps
even into Pittwater, behind Palm Beach.
The view from yesterday’s
building sites was good and fairly extensive from down on the ground so it’ll
be quite good from the top floors. The Hills Street block will have westerly
views over the Narara Valley (where Gosford is) and the Glenworth Valley half
an hour inland and perhaps as far as Wisemans Ferry, a delightful old village
on the winding Hawkesbury River.
The Dwyer Street block will
very likely have glimpses or, from the top floors, proper views of the Tasman
Sea, the sea off Sydney and the Central Coast. Once they’ll nearly finished,
the adverts for them will go into the local real estate listings and we’ll all
get a look at those views.
(Locals, if you live in a spot
in Gosford or around the Brisbane Water or up towards Wyong, we’d love to see
your view and you don’t have to tell us your address or your surname, just your
town or suburb. Paste the URL or website address for your photos into the
comments box below.)
Gosford
is a small town
In June 2017, the population
count for Gosford is about
3,400. The population of Sydney is about 5
million. So Gosford is a small town.
There are a few reasons all
these apartment blocks are suddenly going up in Gosford:
1) Sydney’s population keeps rising so the
housing there is expensive and most of it is too far from the city centre
2) The Central Coast’s population is rising, in
line with the population of the whole of Australia
3) Gosford is only an hour from the heart of
Sydney by train and car
4) It’s a lovely place to live
So Gosford is shedding its
small-town vibe and becoming a middle-sized town. I think perhaps most towns do
that fairly slowly but Gosford’s change is so disconcerting and exciting
because it’s happening so quickly and suddenly.
Lots of locals are hating the
change, especially those who moved up from Sydney to get away from tower blocks
and busy streets. Others, even some who’ve lived here all their lives, are
excited and say things like “it’s about time Gosford caught up”.
Me? I have a foot in both
camps. It’s exciting but a bit scary too. I’ll miss the old small-town Gosford
but, with Gosford being just an hour from downtown Sydney, this change had to
happen. I’m already missing the old good bits but I’m also looking for the new good
bits.
This map shows just a few of the towns and suburbs around the Brisbane Water. There are more but it's not a crowded place to live, it's just right.
I will be taking many more
photos and so we'll see what changes and what doesn't, what we don't like and what we do like.
Come back next week
for more photos and maps. Or enter your email address in the inbox
pinger thing below.
