Escaping the City
Every time I meet someone new in Sydney I am asked - where do you live? And every time I give my answer I get a variation of the same reply - oh my god, you live where? That’s soooo far away!
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| I don’t really live in the bush! |
It’s not really, only an hour by train (longer by car but that is more to do with Sydney traffic than actual distance), south west of Sydney’s CBD. It is not what I consider an “oh my god that’s so far away” kind of distance. I work with people who have never been to the place I live, and in fact one colleague claims to have never been to Sydney’s west at all. Not that I regularly travel to the North of the city, but I do from time to time.
The reason I live so far from the “city” (technically it is still part of the Sydney Metropolitan area, just right on the fringe) is because I like it out there. Way out west, the burbs - call it what you want, to me its just home. I like leaving work on a Friday afternoon, knowing I will not see my work place again until Monday. There is as much chance of randomly running into Madonna or Tiger Woods (we do have 2 golf courses, so not a completely ridiculous thought) as one of my work colleagues or city friends. Smog, unending traffic jams, noisy airplanes flying overhead, confusing one way streets, big crowds, parking on the street - not in Campbelltown. By no means is it a sleepy little outback town, but thankfully it is not a city either, it falls somewhere between the two. Two shopping centers, a couple of hospitals, a university and college, and of course the aforementioned golf courses - we’re living the dream out in Campbelltown!
Some people are real city people, they love being in the city, they love living a busy lifestyle and they can’t cope with the idea of not having the 24 hour facilities of a city. As you may have figured out, I’m not a city person. I work in the city out of necessity and can’t wait for the day I can afford to retire and not have to do it any longer…
Having said that, I love visiting other cities around the world. High on my wish list of places to travel to is New York, the loudest, most in your face city of them all, how will I cope with that! Well, the beauty of travel is the huge choice and variety on offer when visiting new places. When I eventually go to New York, I don’t have to stay in Manhattan every minute of every day, there are plenty of places to escape to. Niagara Falls leaps to mind for a start.
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| Escape the Barcelona crowds in Monserrat |
Last year I experienced Barcelona for the first time, and let me tell you, it is a pretty chaotic place. Very busy - lots of people, traffic, noise - just general mayhem. It was great fun but for me very energy sapping, so what was the solution? Head out of town and do some hiking in Montserrat Natural Park. It was just what I needed to recharge and prepare for another two days of fast paced sightseeing!
I go to Dublin almost every year and I find it getting busier and busier each time. There seems to be more people in Dublin than the whole of Australia sometimes, and the traffic is horrendous (I am not joking, it usually takes over an hour on a bus to get from the city center to a friend’s house 9 miles away!). There is only so much I can take, so what’s the answer? Grab a bike and head into the Wicklow Mountains for a day of fresh air and nature.
On my most recent trip overseas I firstly visited Las Vegas. Now that was a sensory overload and walking down “the Strip” made by head want to explode. Don’t get me wrong, it was great fun, but there is only so much of that kind of place I can handle, so of course when you want to escape Vegas there is only one real option - The Grand Canyon. A day in the canyon was more than enough to restore my inner calm and prepare me for my next city experience.
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| Giant Redwoods of Muir Woods |
San Francisco is probably one of the easier to deal with cities of the world - not overcrowded and plenty of friendly people. However it is part of America and with that comes one of the big attractions for visitors - great shopping. There is a huge choice of shops, all of which seem to have a minimum of 3 levels and stock everything you could ever want to own in your life. It is all just so over the top, I didn’t know where to begin looking and it hurt to shop after a while. Again what’s the solution? Head out to Muir Woods for a dash of Mother Nature, where the Giant Redwoods are as tall as the department stores of Union Square.
In Australia it’s a little easier because its just so big! Sydney is easy to escape, just pick a direction. Head North and explore the Hunter Valley wine region, South for the beautiful beaches of the Royal National Park and beyond, West to get back to nature in the Blue Mountains, or East to do the popular Bondi to Bronte Coast Walk. I am not a fan of Melbourne so anytime I go there I am looking for a reason to escape! Check out the Great Ocean Road to get you started, or head for the hills in Grampians National Park for wildlife spotting. If Perth gets a little too much for (unlikely as it is just like a big village), it only takes around 30 minutes to get out of the city, then its up to you. Drive for an hour or 5 hours in any direction except West, and you will come across some amazing natural attractions like the Pinnacles and Wave Rock.
Probably the craziest city I have been to is Bangkok. You haven’t really experienced crowds, noise and pollution until you have been somewhere like Bangkok. It’s a crazy, crazy city! As a foreigner you stand out like a fox in a flock of sheep (though admittedly, there are plenty of foreigners to stand out, it’s just a matter of by how much!) and as soon as you leave your the hotel are like a magnet for every tuk-tuk driver in town. At the end of each day of sightseeing in Bangkok, I would return to my bed exhausted and drained. How do you rejuvenate the soul when a city is depleting it from within? Get out! A trip into Thailand’s farming areas or to the River Kwai is a great way to replenish the mind and body.
And just for the record, Viator even sells a tour in my home town - Weird Campbelltown History and Ghost Tour … it can’t be that far from civilization!
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