New Zealand

Thursday saw us in Sydney airport First Class lounge as guests of the younger generation of the family, who travel the globe on a fairly regular basis as part of their jobs. I now have an insane longing to travel everywhere First Class, for the lounge is huge, quiet, and a world away from the rowdy, crowded airport realms I’ve been used to. A small piece of card marked Express allows the holder to magically by-pass the monster queues and I didn’t feel in the least guilty in doing so. Staff treat first-class passengers with deference – I’ve never been called ‘Ma’am’ – pronounced correctly to rhyme with ‘ham’ – so often since I left the Singapore Airlines flight at the end of October. Which reminds me that we travelled Heathrow to Singapore on the new A380 double decker (Economy Class, naturally!) the day before one such plane limped back to Singapore with a cracked engine casing. We are due to fly back to Singapore via the same aeroplane, but since they’re all still grounded, we may well be on a 747. A pity, because the new plane is beautifully smooth and quiet.

Cafe Sydney

The seascape is one aspect of Australia, and the nighttime shot is another - and very different.

There nay be other restaurants with splendid views, but Cafe Sydney is up there with the best.

Sitting on the open air deck overlooking Sydney Harbour, the ocean going cruise liners that nudge up against the dock and the numerous ferries that dart across the water as dusk comes down and the lights go on is a magical experience.

Nor can I think of another city that would name its fine restaurant, with what I think of as tongue in cheek flippancy, as Cafe Sydney.

There is another restaurant in Sydney that sits at the top of a tall tower block and revolves very slowly. I imagine that is a wonderful experience too, but I enjoyed cocktails there in daylight, and anyway, it is so high and so far back in the city that the experience would be less intimate, somehow.

Another surprise about Sydney is the number of hills, valleys and ravines that run through the suburbs. The roads are reminiscent of San Francisco as immortalised in the car chase scene in Bullit, and houses here back onto hillsides that would give those suffering from vertigo the creeps. Children cannot ride their bikes home down the hill in some areas because they'd shoot straight over the edge. Driveways slope at forty-five degrees and worse, and in England such a drive would be an impossibility given the winter frost and ice that would make them into ski slopes. So much for me and my impression that Australia was almost tediously flat. Comes of seeing all those nature programmes of intrepid explorers driving along straight roads across red deserts that stretch - flat as a pancake - to the horizon.