The pubs of Port Douglas and Mossman By MICK ROBERTS © WHEN the mill is open, pub business booms in the sugar cane town of Mossman. We spoke with two publicans and a few local drinkers as part of our… Read More ›
Road Trips
Road Trip: Far North Queensland, Part 2
The disappearing pubs of Gordonvale By MICK ROBERTS © SITTING at the end of the bar on his usual stool, ‘Pop’ gave me a cautious glance when I walked into the Great Northern Hotel at Gordonvale and started up a… Read More ›
Road Trip: Far North Queensland, Part 1
By MICK ROBERTS © The pubs of Cairns City, Stratford, Redlynch and Edmonton CAIRNS’ pub culture has changed considerably since the mid 1980s when I first ventured to the far northern Queensland city as a young man. The crowded bars,… Read More ›
Road trip: The cocky and the drag queen
Two very different publicans By Mick Roberts © THEY say that Braidwood, on the NSW Southern Highlands is a diverse community, a place where the city meets the bush, where artists mingle with farmers, where mechanics and shearers share a… Read More ›
Road trip: Pubs of NSW Central Tablelands
By MICK ROBERTS © THERE were lessons to be learnt from our road trip to the central tablelands of NSW. And what was one of those lessons? Bush pubs are as diverse as the publicans behind their bars. Our road… Read More ›
Road Trip: The pubs of Balmain and Rozelle
By MICK ROBERTS © THE pubs we visited on our road trip to Sydney’s inner-west in 2019 started their trading life as working class, blue collar establishments. The four pubs all opened over a century ago, frequented by wharfies, factory… Read More ›
Road trip: Glenroy Hotel, Alexandria
By MICK ROBERTS © THERE’S a feeling of longevity, a sense of durability at the Glenroy Hotel. The Alexandria pub, in Sydney’ inner-southern suburbs, a stone’s throw from Redfern, has been quenching thirsts for as long as anybody cares to… Read More ›
Road Trip: South-west Sydney’s Belfield Hotel
HANDS cupped, peering into the tinted windows of the Belfield Hotel, for a while I thought we had lost another of Sydney’s old pubs. The bar was empty, deserted, with chairs upturned on tables, there was no sign of life…. Read More ›
Road Trip: A visit to the historic Maroubra Bay Hotel
LESS than 30 minutes south of Sydney you will find the historic former Maroubra Bay Hotel. We paid a visit to the beachside pub fondly known as ‘The Bay’ in January 2019, enjoying a feed and a couple of beers…. Read More ›
Portland road trip
By MICK ROBERTS © THERE’S a little country town in the NSW coalfields north-west of Lithgow that I reckon punches well above its weight. While many towns and villages struggle to survive in the mining settlements west of the Great… Read More ›