My Top 4 Top 5 lists from a trip to Australia

Partially because I don’t blog often enough (at least on here), but also because I felt like doing something a bit different from my normal photos, I thought I’d make a record of a few of my memories from my recent trip to Australia. It was my first trip to the Asia/Pacific area, indeed it was the furthest I’d been from home ever – toppling the 6,000 miles travelled to Cape Town by another 4,000 miles. Anyway, here are a few of my thoughts/memories/observations from the trip:

Top 5 films I watched on the plane:

1. Green Zone – The ultimate Bourne-combo of Damon and Greengrass have churned-out another cracker, though I wasn’t clear whether it was entirely factual or a bit of both. Didn’t spoil my enjoyment though.
2. Date Night – I’m pretty sure I heard that this got very bad reviews when it came out, but I liked it – Tina Fey was especially great, and it made me a bit moist-eyed at the end (or maybe that was just the altitude?)
3. I love you too – Great, home-grown Australian movie, very much under-rated from what I’ve read about it since. Really heart-warming and hilariously funny at the same time – best performance by far was from the pint-sized Peter Dinklage, who stole the show.
4. The Ghost – A good film by Polanski, and it didn’t take itself too seriously either. I do wish directors would just let Ewan McGregor do his normal accent though – after this, Star Wars and Angels and Demons, I’ve lost all confidence in his mimicry skills!
5. Shutter Island – Quite a clever and slightly un-nerving thriller, with a very good twist about two-thirds of the way through. I was definitely not my favourite though – it probably didn’t help that I fell asleep half way through, I guess!

Top 5 brilliant things I did while in Sydney

1. Took a trip on the Manly ferry, across the harbour to visit some friends in Manly – a beautiful beach suburb, so far removed from the heart of Sydney that you’d think it was 500 miles away. The ferry back at 11pm wasn’t quite so cool, filled as it was with drunken scousers, for some bizarre reason!
2. Went up the Sydney Tower. I know it’s a very touristy thing to do, but it still has absolutely amazing views across most of Sydney!
3. Ate Sushi, Thai, Australian (I had kangaroo, and it was delicious!), Italian and numerous other types of cuisine. The Sushi in particular was very nice.
4. Managed to sleep later than my usual 6am wake-up (though admittedly not by much)
5. Seemed to completely avoid getting any effects of jet lag whatsoever. I don’t know if it was just the tricks I was told (i.e. don’t take naps when you arrive, just go straight in to their schedule) or just luck, but the only effect of the entire trip was being a tiny bit more tired than usual on the day I got home. That was it – bargain!

Top 5 biggest let-downs in Sydney

1. The Bourke Street bakery – I was told this was a must-see, but the queue round the block (queuing for a room the size of my bathroom) meant it was virtually unvisitable.
2. Bondi Beach – it’s like the Blackpool of Australia, with very few of the locals having a nice word to say about it.
3. Sydney Opera House – It’s an impressive building, for sure – but up-close it looks really… dirty. I always assumed it was shiny and bright-white, but it’s actually a rather dirty brown colour, and the glass around parts of it look like the glass you get in old shops where they’ve not had any sun-protection up.
4. The beer – Australian beer is RUB-bish. Not only is it served in stupid, tiny measures, it’s also really poor quality. The best beers I had while I was there were from New Zealand.
5. The ‘Winter Festival’ – maybe it was just based on the Australian version of ‘freezing cold’ being about 12 degrees, but the Winter Festival being held in the middle of Sydney during my stay was pretty rubbish too, though in quite a quaint way.

Top 5 favourite photos I took during my visit:

The Skyscrapers around the Circular Quay area, where all the ferrys leave for the various different areas of Sydney.

The sunset over Manly Bay, one of the most beautiful areas I visited.

A great contrast of very-modern and beautifully natural, taken from the Botanic Gardens.

A man delighting children with giant bubbles in Sydney’s Hyde Park.

A view over Woolloomooroo from the Sydney Tower, aka Centrepoint

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