For those who don’t know me, I come from a little town called Mittagong in the Southern Highlands region of NSW. And it’s about 2 hours south of Sydney (that’s in Australia for the Miss America contestants out there). The Southern Highlands sit on the Great Diving Range (thanks Wikipedia); basically it’s atop a mountain. If you’re thinking it sounds a little bit delightful, well you’d be right. This whole region is lovely and it was a nice place to grow up. I pretty much lived in Mittagong from when I was born to when I first moved out at 17. I came back again for a few years when I was 18 and would keep returning in between moves.

There is a lot of glorious things around the area like Mount Gibraltar, various wineries, Wombeyan Caves, Carrington Falls, Fitzroy Falls, 40 Foot Falls…okay, there’s just a lot of waterfalls. And cutesy towns too. The Highlands is made up of some adorable places like Bowral, Berrima, Burrawang, Sutton Forest and Robertson. In my opinion, these are the ‘cute’ towns. Defined by either their lovely stores and cafes or by the local scenery, which in this region is mostly rolling green hills and trees. You may even spot a friendly sheep or cow.

So where does Mittagong fit into this? Well, Mittagong is pretty but it has a bit of a weird town centre. The main part of Mittagong is a bit too sprawling for its size, making it feel strange. It feels a bit like a town that you would pass through to get somewhere else, and for many years that’s exactly what this town was. Traffic coming from the North would just drive through until a bypass was built.

It has some cool stuff like Lake Alexandra and Mount Alexandra, which were only about a 3-minute walk from my childhood home. There are a lot of walking trails through this particular area and they’re pretty lovely if you like prickly plants and various scary wildlife (ha, can you tell I’m not the bush-walking type?).

Mittagong has 40 Foot Falls and half of Mount Gibraltar, though I think people from Bowral would like to think that the whole mountain is part of Bowral. The mountain sits between the two towns and very fancy people live on it. I’m talking real fancy. The fanciest of the fancy.

However nice it is, Mittagong will always be a little weird to me. I think most people feel weirdly about the towns they grow up in because undoubtedly some weird, whacky or unpleasant things happened while growing up and the town reminds you of that.

My thing growing up was being bullied for being overweight. Because my primary school was just down the road and then my high school was only in the next town over, I couldn’t really escape those unpleasant bullying memories, or the people who did it. This is not going to be one of those, “oh my childhood was so sad” kind of posts. I don’t really dwell on this stuff anymore. As bad as it sounds, I get some strange satisfaction knowing that I’m thinner and better looking than the guys-who-bullied-me’s girlfriends. Maybe that’s mean or petty to think about but I don’t care.

Despite my issues at school, I was mostly happy. The reason for this was my family. If I’ve yet to mention it, I have a really cool family (extended family included). My brother and I are pretty much besties and we’re more like friends with our parents than anything else. We have a really solid family dynamic and having that kept me pretty sane. If I could have taken them all with me on any of the moves I’ve done, I would have.

My upbringing was a pretty normal one. I had crushes and the fleeting-est of romances. I watched shitloads of tv to escape from school life. I would literally escape school by wagging and go to the movies. I did so much art and craft (who wouldn’t find doing some cross-stitch while simultaneously watching Seinfeld fun, hmm?). I would lay on the trampoline in my swimmers and eat ice cream. I would walk from my house to the Mittagong pool which always smelled like hot chips (and they did the best hot chips with chicken salt, omg). My brother and I would have leaf races in the gutter when it was raining. We’d run to get ice creams from Mr Whippy when he’d come around in his ice cream van. It was all a bit Family Ties-like, honestly.

So, anyway, Bowral is one of these towns that is super cute. It’s really attractive, has a lot more shops, cafes and services than Mittagong does. However, it’s also got some really snobby bastards that make going there a little bit of a drag for me personally. This is pretty much only if you’ve grown up in one of the “lesser towns” like Mittagong or Moss Vale (colloquially known as Moss Vegas). You just get this vibe from some (not all) Bowralians that you’re not as good as them.

See, I grew up on this street called Sunset Point Drive and it was lovely and really safe. But certain people from Bowral described it as a “ghetto”. It’s pretty funny really because obviously none of them have actually been to a real ghetto (I encourage them to visit the real dodgy bit of Western Sydney where my dad grew up). One time my brother actually left one of the street-facing windows wide open, clearly displaying our family computer to passers-by. After an entire day and until I got home from school, it was like this. Nothing was even missing. How ghetto does that sound? I know, extremely.

Anyway, the Southern Highlands may be a bit strange to me but all jokes and weirdness aside, it is a lovely area to visit. If you’re an out-of-towner, then you’ll not notice the superiority from the fancy bastards. You’ll just be delighted by the wine, the café culture and the beautiful scenery. Plus it has the most delicious water and crispiest of air. It's pretty much perfect for day out and definitely worth a visit. Just bring a monocle so you don’t look completely out of place. Oh and be sure to avoid the ghetto. #ghettolife