Shopping Centres

Australia, the same as America, shop in Malls. Most of our malls in UK are found in our city centres, most malls in Oz and USA are found outside of city centres. This makes them less easy to access. To get to shopping malls I had to rely on the people I was staying with as the easiest access was by car. It was possible by bus but not easy as a couple of buses were involved. There were two malls, Carousel and Garden City both about 15 minutes drive. The latter was the upmarket centre and the former was much more normal as far as a shopping centre was concerned! Both centres are like small towns and must both be the size of the centre of Portsmouth, including Cascades, and possibly bigger. Both have a supermarket, either Coles or Woolworths and two department stores Myers and David Jones. There are only two large supermarket chains in Oz and these have monopoly positions, competing against each other and hence making shopping for food more expensive than UK. On the whole things ARE more expensive here and I can only hazard a guess that wages are commensurate with the cost of living. Along with these main shops there are numerous chain stores, some of which we have in UK and others which we do not have, independent stores and a lot of central stalls for the smaller and cheaper seller. What I notice in all the areas in Oz that I have been to this time, are the food courts and these two shopping centres are no different. The food courts appear to be the same size as the centre of shops and the variation in choice is vast. Of course the advantage of these malls to the Australian people are that everything is indoors and well air conditioned, no having to go outside into the heat of the day. Even the car parks, although outside are protected by 'sails'. If you like shopping these are the places to visit. If you want something ordinary, these are the places to visit.
Just two minutes over the road from Lachlan Road (where I am staying) is a small centre. It has a Woolworths food store and a Big W which is an everything store, plus it has lots of other shops for everyday living, including clothes shop, Chinese massage, newsagents, health shop, post office, off licence etc. Again a variety of eateries including KFC, MacDonalds, Turkish, Japanese etc. This is very convenient and is just round the corner from the Leisureplex. It must be the size of the Fareham Shopping Precinct and very handy for a coffee and a relax! Oz certainly has a cafe culture!!