Sydney


Sydney is made up of a number of towns and villages that have grown together yet still retain their individual identities. It is really a garden city, for except in the central business districts, the streets are lined with trees and every house has extensive gardens also stuffed with tall gum trees.

The bush is never far away from Sydney, with tall gum trees lining the streets and choking backyards and roadside gutters with their fallen leaves. However there is a special area of bushland just outside the suburb of Hornsby where you can see wild Australia not more than half an hour's drive from anywhere north of the harbour.

Sydney was, of course, first settled by convicts - wild, lawless men (and women) for whom murder was commonplace. Needless to say, the ghosts of dark deeds done in those early years still haunt the eucalypt forests . . . especially out Campbelltown way.

But true Sydneysiders don't worry about history; they're too busy soaking up the sun (and getting skin cancer) on one of Sydney's famous beaches, which they can reach via a short ferry ride from the city centre.