Kings Cross and Sydney

It seems normal now to have random seventy year old tramps rapping to Eminem on their portable stereos, drunk scruffs talking wilding in their heads, fifty year year old pin in the distance (over the hill does not do it justice), ladies advertising their bodies like a flat in a newspaper and mad people fighting over scraps of beer. I had become used to listening to a girl called Janice talking outside on the public phone in a very typically loud American accent every day for half an hour at nine thirty. Sometimes I just felt like going outside and saying to her “Leave him, he sounds like a right idiot” but I think she would have been too freaked out by that. I am now used to Sven and Olga slobbering away everyday for the past five days.


I was not taken by Sydney where I first got here but slowly and surely it is grabbing my affection. It has everything, great bars, great shops, great vibe, beaches, fantastic public transport that makes London weep. The frustration lies in the fact that public transport in England could be good, it just takes a little effort. The buses run every five minutes, the trains every eight. Ninety five percent of the bus passengers all seem to have weekly tickets to swipe on the way in, this in turn reduces stopping time. The trains are double decker, clean and you can always get a seat even at peak times. I hate to say it but the Australians do things well. The roads are clearly marked, the stations are helpful in their layout and anything that can be done to make your life easier has been done.

“Due to poor service last Wednesday we are providing free travel all day on our trains” .... You what? No really because a few trains had a few problems the week before City Trains were offering a free travel day. Now compare this to say South West Trains and read the small print. Basically for you to get a refund back home the train lateness must fall into a narrow band of criteria and then you may get a small refund but only if you have a monthly pass and your train was late on Monday to Friday consecutively. When you actually get on the trains there are signs saying “Is this carriage clean enough, if not report it to the helpline”, You what? You mean if the carriage has a Twix wrapper underneath the seat you can actually report it and get it sorted.

Can you believe there are statistics on the average number of litter items per carriage per day? I know you are dying to know so here goes - Last December there were 13.1 items of litter per carriage. Yes they actually pay someone to go around and produce stats on the number of pieces of litter. And yes I know you are thinking “Does wrappers from a sweets count as one piece or multiples pieces” - I'm sorry I can't answer that one. Ok then one more stat, there were 20million passengers in Jan - 4 suicides on the track. You could say statically speaking that isn't bad, told you Sydney was a happy place.

Well lets just say there are a few differences. The main difference is manners. They seem really surprised if you say please or thank you as you hardly ever hear them saying it. They are incredibly confident and out going people which can turn into aggression whilst intoxicated. Queuing does not seem to exist here, everyone for themselves. In a way you tend to think that this is not a bad thing, just different. These are the people that will get to the front first and get their own way. Not difficult to realise then why they always whip our arses at sport. Their mentality is refreshing, they don't worry, they have a good time and they are always happy. After the 4 days lying on Bondi beach I had decided that it would be my home for the next week. Considering Bondi is meant to have a world famous reputation I was a little bemused. Imagine Bournemouth beach or Sandbanks. Now you have the beach. Now imagine a combination of Southend seafront and Margate. Now you have the road and shops. Add in a bit of surf and a few surfboards and you have Bondi Beach. It would be slightly unfair to leave it there. If you add in the most stunning women you can imagine and threw two hundred of them on a bit of sand you have Bondi Beach.

There is definitely a rich vibe to this area, it's all about what you wear or in most cases what you don't wear. It's the sort of place that like Bournemouth you would be amazingly happy for two weeks, but after the five months you would long for reality. Finally an oppurtunity to go to an Aussie Barbeque. But try to find some normal sausages and you will struggle. The choice?Italian sausage, German sausage, chicken sausage and a number of other odd looking colour long things. Going for 'Traditional English Sausage' is bound to be a disaster, but that it was. Now this barbeque, let's just say it wasn't on a 5 ft patch of lawn overlooking the council houses. No this was a little different. The flat was on Tamarama beach which is between Bondi and Coogee beaches. Forty feet in front of the balcony was a handful of surfers battling against the strong rip, Twenty feet to the right was a small coved beach. One of the guys at the flat said that the guy who owned the flats had been offered at his door $20 million dollars..... he turned it down. Never agree to play the Germans at football, the outcome is inevitable. Two a side beach football with flip flops for goal posts, we didn't lose on penalties but got well and truly hammered by ten to four. I had remembered the beach from the gruelling two hour walk I decided to take from Bondi to Coogee. Despite the magnificent scenery and the observations of locals just being outdoors and enjoying themselves, the highlight was the massive graveyard on the cliff edge. Huge great tomb stones and statues that went on for half a mile. Some rich people must have live here ......and died in heaven.