Less than 24 hours in Sydney

Australia is four hours from New Zealand by aeroplane. It's significantly further North and therefore warmer, and was populated by man significantly earlier, by approximately 40,000 years. Australia boasts a developed mammalian fauna, resulting in fewer flightless birds than New Zealand, the Emu is an obvious example of what's left. Animals in Australia are generally big, and occasionally scary. It was the colony of fruit bats living in downtown Sydney that impressed me the most.

I stayed in a good clean hostel called the Blue Parrot located in Kings Cross. By some brand of morphic resonance this part of town is seedy, full of bars and sex shops, with more than its fair share of tramps and drug dealers. I arrived on a Saturday morning and after checking in I stepped out to see some of the city. I walked to the ferry port and took a boat across the harbour to Manly. It is good to see the city from the water because you get an idea of the scale of development, and appreciate how and why the early settlers chose the area.