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Geography
At nearly the same size as the USA, Australia is one huge mother of a country consisting of six states and two territories and all known to New Zealanders as the West Island. The states are new South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania; the territories are the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory.
The biggest mistake most tourists make when coming here is the distances between places. It may only be a handspan on the map but it could take five days to drive. For example, I had a house in Melbourne and a job in Townsville and it took 27 hours of driving to get between them. That's not 27 hours all up, that's 27 hours of sitting behind the wheel! Since it's such a vast country, there is only a very short list of the places I've wandered whilst here:-
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Melbourne
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Melbourne is the State Capital of Victoria and spans the Yarra river. The city's CBD is set out on a grid pattern and a free tram service whizzes around the grid in both directions. We lived in Patterson Lakes (eastern suburb) for a few years and decided Melbourne isn't a bad city, as cities go, but I rarely visited 'cos it's too hectic and there are better place to shop (the casino is good though).
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Sydney
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A wonderful place to visit but I'd hate to live there - bedlam and chaos everywhere. It's very tourist down by "The Rocks" which are under Sydney harbour bridge - now there's a thing, the icon of Sydney, the bridge is a larger but direct copy of the Tyne bridge in Newcastle. In fact it was made by the same company and shipped to Australia!
Darling Harbour is cool, the Opera House is nice and a ferry ride to Manly is well worth the effort. Once we stayed in Kings Cross and a very entertaining place it is too.
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Newcastle
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Well we had to call in really didn't we? Stopped at a KFC in a place called Jesmond (I used to work in Jesmond in England) and were gob-smacked by the local suburbs which are all named after places in the North-East of England (Dudley, Gateshead, Lambton, Hexham, Sandgate, Wallsend, Morpeth, etc).
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Port Macquarie
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A good wee drive up the coast from Sydney, Port MacQuarie is probably just about the right size - neither too big nor too small. The first time there we stayed in a flat just across from the main surf beach and it's the earliest I've ever seen the kids get up in the morning. A good trip is the meander up the Hastings River on a cruiser as is the hiring of a tinnie and some rods.
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