Why I love Australia
Welcome to the first blog I’m writing for the new Australia ‘blogging roundtable’. The blogging roundtable is a collaboration between 5 travel writers who are all given the same topic to write about each month. The other writers are Brooke from WhyGo Australia, Caz from yTravelBlog, Michela from Australia Rocky Travel and Colm from Hostelworld and I’m excited to have been asked to write alongside such great writers. You can find links to their blogs at the end of this article.
The first topic is… “Why I love Australia”.
So Why do I love Australia?
Many years ago, as a child growing up in the UK, the two most popular TV programmes for people my age were Neighbours and Home and Away. It helped of course that they were shown just after the standard Childrens TV programmes. So every day after school I was mesmerised by watching Australians speaking in their slightly odd accents and on Home and Away they were always at the beach (Summer Bay or Palm Beach as it’s known in real life!).
I dreamed of one day being able to visit Australia, the exotic country where people spent all day at the beach and the weather was always glorious. I finally made that dream come true at the age of 29.
Neighbours
Well, I knew Australia was going to be an amazing experience, but I was not prepared for how different Australia was going to be from my expectations. All I really knew about Australia before arriving was what the TV had taught me, you know various wildlife programmes and of course Neighbours and Home and Away.
My first shock was the weather. I arrived into Sydney in August. I’d just left the UK where the summer sun was shining (yes, the sun does occasionally come out in the UK), and arrived into Sydney on a sunny but quite chilly day. How can it be chilly I thought? Of course I knew it was winter down here in the Southern hemisphere but I wasn’t prepared for being cold.
The awesome Opera House
The second surprise was Sydney Opera House. Yes, I’d seen it many times on TV and in pictures but it really doesn’t look how you imagine. It’s not even the colour you think it’s going to be. (It’s an incredible experience sitting on the Opera House steps and having that first “I can’t believe I’m really here” moment.)
For the next year I continued to be surprised by the wildlife, the landscape and the people as I travelled all over Australia, from Perth down to Albany and then right up the West coast to Darwin. From Darwin I travelled to the “Red Centre” and then headed to Cairns. From Cairns I travelled to Sydney, onto Melbourne, to Canberra and then back up to Cairns where I got a job on a Great Barrier Reef trip boat.
During that year I experienced so many things and saw so much spectacular scenery that I fell in love with this incredible country. Australia is full of surprises at every turn, from learning that you can actually see penguins and go skiing in Australia (seriously skiiing? Who knew?) to learning that Uluru (or Ayers Rock) is not the only incredible attraction in the centre of this vast country. Uluru was truly amazing to visit, but The Olga’s and Kings Canyon were an unexpected treat and so beautiful they’re hard to describe. When I first saw Uluru it looked exactly like I expected it to from the hundreds of images I’d seen of it before, but then you see it from a different angle and you get closer and you see small waterfalls and caves, truly surprising!
After spending a whole year doing things I never thought I would (like helicopter rides over the Bungle Bungles, going for a walk to see if we could spot saltwater crocodiles in Kakadu National Park, scuba diving and touching a shark) I knew that this part of the world was where I wanted to be. Unfortunately immigration had other ideas and I wasn’t able to extend my one year Australian working holiday visa, however I do now live in New Zealand, another stunning country and just a 3 hour flight from Australia.
So why do I love Australia? Australia is one big surprise to another from its amazing wildlife, unbelievable scenery and once in a lifetime experiences. I want to let everyone know about this country, I want to let them know that even though you think you know what Australia is all about you actually have no idea unless you see it and experience it for yourself.
Make sure you check out the articles from the other ‘blogging roundtable’ writers…
- Brooke from WhyGo Australia: Why I Love Australia
- Caz from yTravelBlog: Why I Love Australia
- Michela from Australia Rocky Travel: Why I Love Australia
- Colm from Hostelworld: 10 Reasons Why I Love Australia
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