Sydney was the first place I visited outside New Zealand. I was in my mid-thirties and had chosen to learn to fly instead of travelling. In 1987 I took my first flight in a 747 from Auckland to Sydney. I was a very excited man. I remember flying in over Sydney and it looked so foreign. Red tile roofs could be seen and there were no hills of any consequence, the buildings instead providing a skyline.
We took an airport bus to Kings Cross where we were staying (like all Kiwis at that time) and apparently I was strangely quiet on the bus. My partner asked what was wrong and I said I just want to go home. I felt the same feeling of "homesickness" that I had felt when I went to boarding school.
The place looked so foreign, not only that it was warm and we were in the middle of winter. The houses all seemed to be dark and foreboding with small windows. In the centre of the city the office building towered above us. Police wore guns. Nonetheless once I had got over that moment of displacement I enjoyed going up the Sydney Tower, and having fish and chips at Doyles in Watsons Bay, after travelling by boat on the magnificent Harbour.
Since that visit I had rarely visited Sydney until recently. There was a conference at Darling Harbour a year later and then there was a long gap before going back around 2000. It was not a place I could ever see myself settling in, too big and too Australian.
Of course life has and in 2010 having been made redundant I thought I would do something different for Queens Birthday Weekend. Sydney was easy to get to and was likely to be a bit warmer than Wellington at that time.
A woman friend from my past had contacted me a few months earlier and since I was coming over I suggested that we might meet up for a meal on the Saturday night. We had a nice meal in Surrey Hills (not sure where the hills are but there is a bit of rise). The next day we met up again and went to Cockatoo Island which turned out to be a very nice way to spend an afternoon.
I did not realise at the time that Sydney would become a familiar destination.
My visits increased in frequency after going on the Central Otago Rail Trail about three years ago. The Kiwi/Australian initially introduced me to the wider environs of Sydney, places like Burradoo in the Central Highlands, Kangaroo Valley and Berry which are in the same area but closer to the coast, Port Stephens, Lake Macquarie and the Blue Mountains.
Three years on I feel like someone who has got their foot in the door without actually living there. The place is familiar in the same way as I felt after having lived in Wellington for two or three years. A sense living in a place without feeling like I belong there.
I think Sydney provides a window into Australia. Some would say that it is not the real Australia and that you have to go to the outback for that. That said Australia is very urban with over 50% of the population living in the six urban centres.
Compared to New Zealand people seem to be more optimistic (despite having voted for Tony Abbott). It is a more aggressive society, and people are not as friendly, particularly in a large city like Sydney. It is far more patriotic than NZ. Corruption seems to be a way of life although there are corruption commissions that are tasked with investigating allegations of corruption. Politicians of all stripes have been outed, which is good. Their politicians make ours seem tame by comparison in the way they treat each other. They are more insular and the best comparison I can make is that they are like the US but on tranquilisers. New Zealand is regarded like a cuddly toy - a nice little place to visit but not that important.
Compared to New Zealand taxes are higher and they are sensible in that at least the high earners get taxed more than in the NZ. There are a multitude of different taxes which makes the NZ system looked efficient and simple by comparison. There seem to be so many exemptions. Similar to us they have a taxpayer funded healthcare system but like NZ it is also being starved of funds. On the other hand some years ago they introduced an employer funded super scheme which has resulted in a large investment fund. The pension supplied by the state is means tested unlike the one in NZ.
Sydney like Auckland is in the middle of a housing boom - B's property has increased in value by about 30% over the past couple of years. You could not get that sort of return in either the sharemarket or with interest on savings. It also has its transport woes with motorways everywhere and all of them clogged at peak time. They keep building more but these are all tolled which means many people take alternate and routes. The trains work well if you are near a line but, if not, the bus service, particularly where B lives, is infrequent which does not make it a particularly viable way to get around. It seems the people of Sydney want more and better public transport but like in New Zealand both the NSW state government and the federal government are determined that more motorways (tolled of course) are the way to go. Public Private Partnerships prevail and that can make things very expensive. For instance, the track from the airport was built by a PPP and due to the contract it costs around $15 to go to the CBD a fifteen minute train ride. Go to a station on either side of the airport then it would cost in the region of $3. To get to B's place is around $3.40 from the CBD and she is fifty minute train ride away.
The weather is warmer, of course, than Wellington but this summer was better in Wellington than Sydney where it was very wet. Normally Sydney is relatively dry and warm to hot with humidity sometimes in the almost unbearable range. However for about 70% of the year it is very agreeable. It can get cool particularly in Blue Mountains which are almost part of Sydney metropolitan.
Food generally costs around that same as in New Zealand, perhaps a tad cheaper. I have found a wonderful Farmers Market at Eveleigh where it is possible to get organic vegetables and meat from growers who will travel significant distances to sell at the market. While most of the vegetables we get in NZ are similar things like broccoli and cauliflower are more expensive. I was surprised to find that during the summer aubergines were not as available. However, there are nuts like macadamias and pistachios at reasonable prices. Of course, tropical fruits like mangoes are available in season.
I think our meat is better and ironically we have better range. Getting fresh fish is more of a challenge. They have lots of prawns but the range of species is not as good as we get in Wellington. There is even some from New Zealand.
While there is much to like about Sydney I could not imagine living there long term. It is too hot in the summer, there are lots of bugs, the traffic is horrific, access to wild places is not next door like in Wellington. It takes forever to get anywhere and if you go to beaches or the like on a nice day you are confronted by crowds of people. On the other hand we have been to some very nice restaurants which are BYO. The food provided has generally been exceptionally good both in taste and in value. What has surprised me, when compared with Wellington, is the relative absence of small cinemas with a few screens to show not only blockbusters but the non-mainstream films. I would have thought that on the North Shore there would have been more given the educated and wealthy demographic. Perhaps the weather is too good and they spend a lot of time outside.
