Balclutha
Never heard of it? Hmm..not surprised.

To get to Balclutha, take a flight to Auckland, NZ. Then, get on another plane to Dunedin. From there, get a bus (there's 3 a day) for 1 1/2 hours until you disembark in Clyde Street, Balclutha. Well done, you've arrived. Why the cunting fuck did you bother?

Balclutha is a one horse town, where the horse has long since died of boredom. Many people will go on about the wild, untamed beauty of the South Island of New Zealand, and it is stunning. Balclutha, however...is not. It is a presbyterian, dour shithole with architecture from the "how cheap and ugly can we do it?" school of design. Calgalus mentions the grim towns of SW Scotland. Balclutha is like that, but if possible, worse.

Built on the banks of the Clutha river, Balclutha consists of 1 main street, a fair few houses...and that's fairly much it.

So picture the scene. A young Carrot (of 7 tender years) is told one morning by his mother that they are going over to New Zealand for 6 months! Hurrah! Imagine, then, the soul crushing disappointment on arrival in this arsehole of the south.

In 6 months (during UK summer, by the way...so NZ winter) I nearly lost the will to live. Honestly I can now understand how people top themselves and half the community in towns like this. The architecture was breathtakingly dull. The school I went to was crap, and I had gone from being a novelty with my English accent to being the target of all abuse that was being hurled. Maybe because I wasn't related to everyone else there...

Every Sunday we went to church...and I looked forward to it! Why? Because it was the only form of distraction from the mind-numbing tedium of my weekly existence. The weekly walk to the abbatoir where my brother worked was the only other highlight. I mean really...how bad must a town be that a trip to the slaughterhouse seems like a happy excursion?

When we left Balclutha (on the 1 train a day) I stuck 2 fingers up to what is possibly the most tedious town known to man or sheep.
( Undercovercarrot got done for gross misconduct on..., Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:11, 3 replies)

I think
I've actually driven through it. It reinforces your argument to know that I can recall nothing about it whatsoever
(rockdoctor, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 13:15, closed)

I wouldn't be surprised
It is on SH1, between Dunedin and...err...Invercargill I think.
( Undercovercarrot got done for gross misconduct on..., Thu 29 Oct 2009, 16:07, closed)

Scary place by the sound of it
If you're a sheep.
(Le Grenouille, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 23:41, closed)