Migrantweb.com Hostels Forum

[teecee1941]

Anyone on here stayed at yungaba in brisbane? I was there from October 82 till March 83. Times were hard there was no work and many migrants who could afford to (including me) went home as they could see no future and preferred to go back to the UK where things were also tough at the time.

Being directly underneath the Story bridge there was a constant rumble 24 hours a day and you never got used to it. It was the most nauseating sound ever. Food and acommodation were the same as in prison and indeed vans arrived daily with Wacol Prison signs on the side. Lights in the rooms were 40 watt bulbs to encourage inmates not to stay longer than the basic week or so. Unfortunately because of the lack of jobs families stayed longer much to the annoyance of the authorities who tried to portray some sort of normality.

People I remember who ran the place; Mr Marshman the boss, Mr Nugent his sidekick, Miss Velnagel who I once saw smiling, Mrs Bowman the employment officer who sadly had the task of trying to keep up the pretence of jobs being just around the corner. Mrs Bell in the canteen, the gardeners whose names I can't remember. There was also a blind man in the office who took phone calls, he was a gentleman.

Sadly, I heard that Yungaba is to be sold to some developers to be turned into 10 private apartments in spite of a request from the citizens of Brisbane,( who are also the voters) to save the building for future generations of Queenslanders. This is appalling

[Len]

Hi teecee and welcome to our forums.
Doesn�t look as though you had a very good experience and I�m sorry to hear that. It�s such a shame that things didn�t turn out the way you expected, especially when you had gone to all that trouble of sorting things out and moving over there.
I�m not familiar with Yungaba Hostel but if you do a google search there's quite a bit of information about it and it looks to be a nice place.

There�s quite a good aerial View of Kangaroo Point and Yungaba Hostel 'courtesy of WikiMapia' and I�m sure you�ve seen it teecee but for those that haven�t, take a look.
Yungaba Hostel

[teecee1941]

thanks for your reply, Len. Yes, it's true we didn't have much fun in Yungaba in those days but in October 2006 my wife and I went to the Sunshine Coast (from UK) for a months holiday. Superb! Whilst we were there we travelled down to Brisbane to visit old sites and first stop was a visit to Yungaba. It was great to see the old hostel again and any unhappy memories were quickly washed away and we stayed for quite a while just taking in the ambience. Sadly, there were no migrants there and the place did not have the 'live' feeling that it had when people were living there.

At the moment I'm giving my support to the Yungaba Action Group who.despite overwhelming odds are trying to overturn Brisbane Council's decision to sell off Yungaba for a fat profit in a scheme which will benefit the chosen few when in reality thousands of past migrants have staked a bigger claim in the place than anyone else.

True, as you say, Len, there are some good shots of the place on WikiMapia and also great photographs on Abovephotography. Not just photo's of Yungaba but different places round the country so I expect other hostels will be on there too.
best wishes Teecee