Usually that’s the response you get from someone when you tell them you live in Gordon Park – even if they’ve lived in Brisbane their entire life.
asserted
they → ’ → Brisbane
It is the suburb the city forgot.
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city → forget → ?
One of Brisbane’s smallest suburbs, Gordon Park began life as a locality in 1975, upgraded to a suburb in 1992 thanks to campaigning locals.
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Park → begin → locals
Yet it’s true Gordon Park has always been better defined by what’s around it.
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what → ’ → it
On one side, there’s Lutwyche, which, with all due respect, has little to offer besides bumper-to-bumper traffic and a Bermuda Triangle of supermarkets – a Coles, a Woolies, an Aldi – all under the one roof at a shopping centre locals dub Slutwyche (for the over-abundance of offerings).
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locals → ’ → offerings
On the other, there’s Stafford, where you can go for a late-night Kmart sticky beak or a movie at the empty Hoyts, then walk home with a questionable kebab under your arm.
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you → ’ → arm
Completing the suburban Pythagoras theorem is Kedron, the favourite of the Gordon Park neighbours thanks largely to Kedron Brook.
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Kedron → complete → Brook
One side is dedicated to doggos, who can be seen sprinting along the grass and dive bombing into the Brook below any time of day, any day of the week.
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who → dedicate → week
The other side is paved, a popular spot for joggers, walkers, the pram brigade and 14-year-olds keen to pop a wheelie on their electric bikies.
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side → pop → bikies
Kedron Brook may look like little more than a trickling creek, but anyone who has had an evening stroll there at sunset can’t deny it’s what Kacey Musgraves would describe as golden hour.
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Musgraves → look → hour
Walking that path under pink and blue Paddle Pop skies, you’ll bump into your neighbour, or your neighbour’s neighbour, also trying to get their steps in.
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you → walk → steps
(Does a particular part of the brook have a resident bull shark?
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part → have → shark
Yes, yes it does.
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it → do → ?
Gordon Park and its surrounding suburbs have a local character called the Flower Guy.
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Park → surround → character
No one actually knows his name, he’s just always been called the Flower Guy.
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he → know → name
In a pair of knee-high socks, hi-vis shirt and freshly dyed hair, he walks around with a ziplock bag full of yellow flowers that he hands out with a smile.
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he → dye → smile
The flowers are technically weeds, but it’s the thought that counts.
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that → ’ → ?
Our suburb is named after that eminent Victorian, General Charles Gordon.
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suburb → name → Victorian
Digging into the history of any colonial-era British figure of note is priming yourself for a jump scare – a human rights violation here, massacre there – yet accounts differ of General Gordon.
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accounts → dig → Gordon
Variously depicted as a patriot, a fanatic, a martyr and an alcoholic, he had a tendency to befriend the local forces he’d been sent to oppress, until his bosses would get annoyed and he’d be moved on, then the cycle would repeat.
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cycle → depict → forces
Not that you’d have any clue about any of that wandering around the modern-day Gordon Park, but streets such as Khartoum Street and Suez Street are nods to his storied career.
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streets → have → career
During the day, it can look like any other suburb in Brissie: street after street of Queenslanders that no one can afford to live in anymore and footpaths that go for a few metres before ending abruptly by connecting to nowhere.
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that → look → metres
But sunrise and sunset are the times when the suburb comes alive.
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suburb → come → ?
I’ll often get up at 4.30am, check Surfline.com, then fang it out of the city with surfboards in the back of my van.
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I → get → van
Life seems to erupt from the unofficial town centre: Kit Gloves Coffee, which opens at 5.
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which → seem → 5
A genuine hole-in-the-wall, it’s the beating heart of the 4031 postcode.
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it → ’ → postcode
Run by Vee, whose signature bob reminiscent of Edna ‘E’ Mode from The Incredibles also makes up the cafe’s logo, it’s not a zip-in, zip-out kind of place.
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it → Run → place
People come to get a coffee, probably three, and they linger: incidentally bumping into neighbours or making new friends there by chance.
Before dawn, there’s already a crowd perched on stools out the front.
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they → come → front
Those who can’t stop toot a horn or wind down the window to have a chat while they wait at the lights – often to Jeff, who runs Brisbane’s sneaky best bowls club The Boo, just down the road in Newstead.
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who → stop → Newstead
In summer, dinner parties my flatmates have thrown stretch from the late afternoon to evening, into the wee hours of the morning.
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flatmates → throw → morning
Storms are observed with appreciative ooohs and aaahs off the back deck as lightning crackles overhead.
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lightning → observe → deck
The neon blue cross from one of the nearby Catholic schools illuminates half the suburb at night like a leftover prop from a Baz Luhrmann movie.
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cross → illuminate → movie
Sitting on a balcony, you might be more likely to hear a yelling match on Stafford Road a few streets over than a chorus of birds at dawn, but hey, it’s still Brisbane, even if it can feel like a little bubble within it.
uncertain
it → sit → it
Gordon Park isn’t a suburb that has much going on and, frankly, that’s the appeal.
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that → have → much
The Aporia
