Australia is my spiritual home

It might be tantamount to treason to admit it, but I love Australia. An ex-boyfriend and I moved to Sydney in the mid-2000s as a stepping stone to the United Kingdom, and had such a good time we ended up staying three years.

I may never have left if we hadn’t broken up and I felt compelled to return to New Zealand to be with my family and reassess my life choices.

I did get to the UK eventually and, while I’m happy to be back in New Zealand now, Sydney remains my spiritual home. I love that it’s cosmopolitan and worldly but laid-back – as comfortable in a suit as in swimmers.

When it’s cold and rainy in Auckland (that’s quite often), I find myself succumbing to nostalgia and thinking back to my daily runs around North Head to Manly Beach, glimpsing spectacular views of Sydney Harbour and the Tasman through the gum trees, before cooling off in the surf; to drinking on rooftop bars in gentrified but still pretty grungy Newtown before reviving myself at one of the many local vegan eateries the next day; to watching the New Year’s Eve fireworks light up the Sydney Opera House from a mate’s boat; to a comprehensive public transport system...

However, I hadn’t been to Newcastle in the Hunter Region until last week but I immediately felt at home there with its sunkissed red, gold and green landscapes and those bright blue skies that make it almost impossible to feel gloomy.

Those blue skies do cloud over, of course. It’s not all sunshine and rose wine. Partly because semillon and shiraz are specialities in the Hunter Region and partly because nowhere is perfect.

But Australia does make for pretty perfect holidays. Different but not dissimilar to New Zealand, it’s an ideal destination if you just want to relax and have fun. Although, as I discovered on this trip, there are plenty of ways to challenge yourself – see the story on page 18.