Exit Australia

Its not with great happiness I am leaving Australia and Sydney after two great years, however looking back gives me some great memories of an amazing country and one of the greatest cities in the world:

In many ways Australia and Sydney is an Island and in some context it may be to its disadvantage like enormous distances to all its neighbouring countries as well as being in a “void” time zone not shared by any of its close historical and cultural partners like Europe or the US. So, what is so great with Australia and Sydney? Its climate and beaches seems quite obvious, but in addition its very friendly people – Sydney and probably the whole continent is populated with as polite and friendly people that you could only find in Europe 50 years ago… Next is of course its diverse biology in the sense that Australia have a very unique population of birds, animals and insects – if you find anything you know from your home country, it has probably been imported or migrated (cockroaches) – no need to mention all the harm the early migrants did to the wild life in Australia by bringing rabbits, foxes, etc etc, just for “fun”…

Back to Sydney, where else would you today find a city metropolis with clean and free (no charges) public toilets? And they are everywhere in the city!  Sounds like a minuscule detail – trust me it isn’t – wherever you travel it’s a challenge to find clean public toilets, let alone free service, however not in Sydney!

As for a cultural city, Sydney has a lot to offer (more than Melbourne ;-)), not only the iconic opera, but “open air” opera in the park and at the sea front, likewise summer open air cinemas, concerts, short film festivals etc – all outdoor:

And this is in addition to all what happens in the theaters and concert halls – and not to forget the winter light festival “Vivid Sydney” which is a unique light festival using the opera building sails as well as buildings in the rocks to display innovative light shows:

As for culture I of course need to mention all the wine festivals, there is one almost every month and most of them outdoor in a park or at Manly beach:

 
While living in Australia and Sydney, we have had the pleasure of exploring most of NSW and the East coast up to Cairns and its world oldest rainforest as well as into the amazing Uluru at the heart of Australia:

When we left we thus took the opportunity of exploring some of the Australian West coast, specifically from Perth and down to Margaret river, yet another different geography and climate zone different from the East coast, but of course being three time zones to the west, no wonder it would be different – and by itself very beautiful: