AUSTRALIA
Sydney :
playing golf with kangaroos
Australia is an island but
a continent where the distances are just as long as those
of the United States: Sydney-Perth is similar to New-York-los
Angeles and Darwin-Melbourne to Chicago-Miami. Each state
has his peculiarities from the tropical rain forest in the
northern countries to the snowy mountains where to ski in
the south and the immense red desert in between with the famous
Ayers Rock. You can devote weeks, months or even years just
visiting, but even Europeans have been won over by this new
country and set up home there, if not for a long time - for
ever. Discovering region after region, town after town starting
with the first, the most important and the most 'Australian'
of it all, Sydney, is an exciting experience.
Sydney lives
on the water embracing the multiple windings of Jackson Bay
at the mouth of the Parramatta River. From the observation
platform and the revolving restaurant at the top of Sydney
Tower, you will notice that the water penetrates everywhere,
even between the hills, making water transport faster than
roads despite the majestic, but traffic jammed, Sydney Harbour
Bridge which unites the two rivers.
Every day,
thousands of Sydneysiders take the boat to go to work. Passing
between the Opera House, whose architecture is world famous,
and the Rocks, the old quarter where the first convicts, British
deportees, set up their encampments in 1788, to land at Circular
Quay.
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Briefcases in hand, sun-tanned faces, light coloured
shirts, ties, shorts and white knee-high socks, they get
to their offices in the slender city buildings.
As they say of themselves 'Work's place in Sydney
is between the pub and the beach.'
The best way
to discover Sydney is to take a tour of the bay from Circular
Quay. You can either do this aboard one of the ferries from
the numerous regular lines which relay every corner and creek
to the city, or with a guided tour aboard the sailing boat
'The Bounty' or on a river-boat, which are tied up on the
Rocks Quay. You have more freedom with the regular lines,
getting off where you want and taking the next ferry.
You really
must see the Opera House from the bay, in front of the crests
of glass of the sky-scrapers, and walk along the old town
and the antiquated warehouses of the time-worn quays in the
Rocks quarter. Don't forget to penetrate into the many creeks
of the town and feel the local way of life through the style
of the traditional bourgeois houses. Also stop off at Darling
Harbour, the gigantic attraction park, which Sydney had built
in the heart of the town for its two hundredth anniversary.
If you enjoy antiquities, pop into the Australian Naval Museum.
The underwater aquarium should be on your list too, where
you can circulate on a 110 meter long moving walkway, and
find yourself among huge sharks and manta rays. Take the overhead
monorail and cross the pedestrian area to go and stroll around
the small shops on the three floors of the Victoria Building,
which Pierre Cardin said was one of the most appealing shopping
centres in the world.
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View from Sydney Tower
Circular Quay and the city
The Bounty at quay
Take a koala in your arms
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