A short one this month, as I already wrote far too much English in my analysis of Australia’s excellent craft beer.
It has been a strong fourth month. Sydney, Melbourne and the area in between was probably my favourite part of Australia. I can definitely see why it’s the part on which most travellers focus. If you want to live in a big city, both seem like pretty pleasant options.
Sydney in particular is great: the centre didn’t seem too hectic, it had great food and drink and some beaches that are far too beautiful to be in a huge city. It helped that we were hosted by Claire in her lovely and well-located house.
That said, after just a few days we knew that we preferred New Zealand to Australia. There is more to see and do within a smaller area but more crucially it wins on mountains. It’s also feels a bit less of a nanny state! We were slightly biased by spending the first two weeks with Dave and Lauren and their campervan. As I’ve previously mentioned I need to be kept busy and a group of four is better for that than just Alice.
In both Australia and New Zealand, we continue to enjoy the freedom of our own vehicle and the ease of getting off the tourist trail. However, I’ve once again fallen into the trap of doing way too much research into the coming weeks in an attempt to optimise our trip. I guess I should be reading a book, learning some languages or enjoying the place we’re in; regardless, I must ban myself from phone-based research. I think I miss lesson planning and organising things at work – a whole year without a job is probably too much for me.
Good news though, I may have found a temporary outlet for my energy: in the last week we’ve just started to visit some of New Zealand’s excellent mountain huts. More about those next month.