Travel diary in Australia

Well yes, after much deliberation I decide... in August I'm off... Australia lies in the southern hemisphere and has a total area of 7,772,535 km2, almost 30 times larger than Italy. Inhabited by Aborigines for more than 60,000 years, it is the world's oldest continent and now has a population of 20,000,000. After 14 hours of flying I arrive in Hong Kong and stop, for a technical stopover, for about 12 hours. I take the opportunity, then, to visit the beautiful island, which still today is the most beautiful city I have ever seen... Another 11 hours of flying then await me to reach my destination......WELCOME TO AUSTRALIA... Here I am, after a gruelling flight, I arrive in Sydney and... I can't believe my eyes... I set foot on Australian soil at 12.00 local time, which in Italy would be 3.00 in the morning...

Once at the airport they check my suitcases and I take the opportunity to change money into Australian dollars, which are worth 0.80 EUR... I take the metro and head into the centre of Sydney, where I've booked the first night in a hotel, on Pitt Street. Speaking of the seasons, in Australia they are the exact opposite of those of the northern hemisphere. In the southern part of the country, spring arrives in September, summer runs from December to January, autumn from March to May, while winter begins in June. The good thing is that the weather, for most of the year, is fine and dry. To put it plainly, right now it's the middle of winter here, but during the day I'm in short sleeves, even though the maximum is around 18 degrees C...

After settling in, I start my sightseeing straight away and take the opportunity to go up the Sydney Tower, which is the highest viewing point in the whole southern hemisphere (formerly AMP Tower). From up here you get an extraordinary 360-degree view of Sydney's main landmarks... truly a spectacle, which I recommend as a first visit... On the top floor you can take a multimedia journey through Australia, through a series of virtual ports... On the second-to-top floor, on the other hand, there's a restaurant offering 7 kinds of rather "unusual" meat... from crocodile to kangaroo, then on to Australian ostrich... I still feel as if I'm dreaming... I head then to Sydney's symbol: the Opera House... There is no other building in the world of equal beauty, made famous even before it was finished... In reality, it's a group of theatres and halls, covered by the famous series of "shells"...

Not to mention the Harbour Bridge, which remains a stone's throw away, right in front of the Opera House... A masterpiece of engineering and a remarkable economic feat, which moreover you can visit above the top, enjoying a view of Sydney harbour that is unique in the world... On 2 August I'm visiting Sydney's Taronga Zoo, which is on the opposite side of the centre... A unique experience is the first time I have the honour of seeing up close and stroking kangaroos and koalas... so sweet... especially seeing the female with the baby inside her pouch... Of course, I take the opportunity to snap a lot of photos... Then I move on to Sydney Aquarium, which houses the country's largest collection of aquatic species. In a series of marine habitats live more than 11,000 specimens of around 650 species.

For the many visitors, the main attraction is the route called "On the ocean floor": a transparent 150-metre underwater tunnel that crosses two ocean tanks... truly thrilling... The route lets you see sharks, rays and shoals of other kinds of fish up close. Seals and sea lions can be observed, from above and below, in special marine reserves... Very beautiful is the exhibition of the Great Barrier Reef of Queensland, which remains the largest and most beautiful in the world... Speaking of beaches, I make a trip to Bondi Beach, Sydney's best-known beach, crescent-shaped, with golden sand... It is the meeting point for sun and surf enthusiasts, who come from all over the world in search of the "big wave". I then visit the stunning coast of Manly, washed by the ocean... truly impressive...

In the late afternoon, I visit Sydney's Olympic park, located near Homebush Bay, which hosted the 27th Olympic Games and the Paralympics... Driving in Australia is on the right and the direction of travel is the opposite of ours... In the centre of Sydney there's a fantastic monorail, which I recommend taking... Very beautiful and unusual to visit is the Chinatown area and the covered Rocks Market, which is near the harbour. I get organised, booking a tour, to go and visit the Blue Mountains National Park... This park developed over the course of 250 million years, with the deposition and accumulation of sedimentary rocks and their subsequent erosion, which formed chasms and spectacular inlets such as the Canyons. After 4 hours of travel by train, I arrive at the base camp "Katoomba", then take the coach that takes me straight to the panoramic area...

And there before me are the Three Sisters, 1,100 metres tall: a rock formation due to erosion. According to Aboriginal legend, the rock recalls the three sisters imprisoned by their father, to protect them from a "bunyip" (that is, a monster). Personally, I recommend everyone "make a trip there", it's really worth it... especially having lunch above the viewpoint, which is a unique spectacle!!! In the afternoon we go to visit Wentworth Falls... a thing unique in the world... I really have never seen anything like it... In the evening, I set off again for Sydney to get ready, for the following morning, for an experience I'll write about in the next lines... On 10 August I'm on a flight from Sydney bound for Alice Springs, exactly the heart of Australia, in the region called the "Red Centre"...

It consists essentially of vast desert areas and the term "red", which forms part of its name, is due to the fact that it is characterised and distinguished by the colour red (in English, precisely, "red"): red is the sand, as are the soil, the rocks and even the mountains that stand out against the clear blue sky... The Red Centre boasts one of the most beautiful natural landscapes in the world, much of which dates back more than 800 million years... I spend 3 hours flying... a very bumpy flight, moreover, with quite a bit of turbulence and air pockets... but what matters is arriving safe and sound at my destination!!! I stay the night in Alice Springs, a very quiet little town and the base camp for departures into the desert... Very pretty is the view you get from the top of Anzac Hill... you can look out over the whole landscape...

and it's also the first time I have the opportunity to see the enormous trucks with three trailers... The next morning we set off on the mega safari, a week long, in the Red Centre. There are 18 of us: I'm the only Italian, while the others are Australian, American, Japanese, Londoners and Canadian... The means of transport that accompanies us on this adventure is a minibus, complete with a little trailer to hold the suitcases... as well, of course, as the two guides... After travelling a good 500 km in the middle of the desert, we arrived at the first marvellous Rainbow Valley: it's an indescribable spectacle to see these mountains "popping up" out of the desert, with their particular shapes... to appreciate all this, though, you have to see it with your own eyes... words aren't enough to comment on it and certainly don't convey the idea...

We entered the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and... "he" is glimpsed!!! The most recognisable symbol of Australia is the gigantic monolith.