Why Australia is a must visit just once in your life
I started in Sydney, mostly because that's the polite thing to do. Up close the Opera House tiles look a bit like very expensive bathroom flooring, though the whole building is magnificent all the same. The harbour is where the real pleasure is. The ferry to Manly costs a fraction of the three hundred dollars they charge to climb the bridge, and you don't have to wear a jumpsuit that makes you look like a Teletubby. Wind in your hair, the coathanger in view. Best value in the city, easily.
After the coastal glitz comes the Red Centre. Flying into Uluru is surreal: a very big, very red rock surrounded by a whole lot of nothing, and yet utterly captivating. There's a spiritual weight to the place that makes you feel small. I watched the sunset turn the sandstone from orange to a deep bruised purple, and I did it with a head net on, looking like a beekeeper having a midlife crisis. Buy the net. Keep your sanity. The flies got into my nostrils three times before I gave in. Then the Great Barrier Reef. I headed up to Port Douglas, where the water is the colour of a Tupperware bowl and just as warm. Snorkelling there is like swimming inside a high-definition screensaver. I spent an hour trailing a sea turtle who seemed entirely unimpressed by my presence. Maybe it was a different turtle by the end; they all look alike from behind. On the deck afterwards I had a cold drink while the sun dropped below the Coral Sea, and I started to see why people move here and never go home.
The lingo is the real challenge. For my first three days I nodded politely whenever someone mentioned a "servo," a "bottle-o," or an "arvo." By day four I was calling people "mate" with a confidence I hadn't earned. There's a laid back energy to Australians that's infectious. They make you feel like the world isn't ending, even when it's 38°C and the tarmac is melting your flip-flops (sorry, "thongs"). Australia runs closer to an endurance test for your senses than a holiday. Too big, too hot, far too far away. The sheer scale of it makes our little island feel like a well-kept garden. You come home with a suitcase full of red dust and a tan that's slightly more aggressive than the one you left with. Back in England, the most dangerous animal you're likely to face is a grumpy swan. My suitcase still smells faintly of eucalyptus. |
Australia sits a very long way from anywhere else you might go on holiday. The flight alone eats fourteen hours, give or take, and the safety briefing starts to feel less like a welcome and more like a warning. You land into heat that wants to cook you, and magpies that go straight for your head. The locals have shortened a good deal of the language to words ending in "o" or "ie." People keep booking the trip anyway, and I get it.
Bondi Beach is where the glamour lives, and it's populated almost entirely by people who have clearly never eaten a biscuit in their lives. I spent an afternoon there attempting to look athletic while actually just focusing on not getting swept out to New Zealand by a rogue wave. Swim between the red and yellow flags. Do it, because a bronzed lifeguard will otherwise yell at you through a megaphone, and that's a level of public shaming no Brit is prepared for. The sand was hot enough that I hopped the last twenty metres to my towel.
Wildlife is the main event. Before I left, I was told everything in Australia wants to kill you. Slight exaggeration. Most things just want to be left alone, except the kangaroos, which are essentially deer that have spent too much time at the gym. A wild koala is a highlight, though they mostly sleep and look like they've had a very long night at the pub. I never did see one awake for more than a minute.
