What I miss about Australia

Birds – On my initial visit to New Zealand several years ago I was struck by the silence of the forests. Nothing stirred, very few birds calling, nothing scurrying from the walking tacks before me. For a real ‘birdo’ like me it felt like uninhabited forests and blank skies.
Long-term relationships – You can’t beat the sensation of having close contact with people who have known you for most of your life, if not all of it. Family and friends I am close to are truly missed. People who know everything about you and still enjoy your company.

Flowers - A similar story to birds. With so much vegetation covering the landscape, it remains green the majority of the year. However, it is never punctuated by the mass flowerings of plants back home like eucalypts, acacias and grevilleas. It’s just continuously green.

High clouds – Simple but true. Cloud cover is usually low over here, hence the high rainfall. I miss the long wispy clouds of an Aussie summer spread across the sky, frequently culminating in remarkable sunsets.

Good wages – NZ has had a poor economy for a few years now and wages are low compared to the cost of living. It was even like this before the global financial crisis and wages are generally 20% less here than in Australia. Lucky for us, having one car, no kids, no mortgage and a simple lifestyle allows us enough money to travel.

Quality news programmes – The only way to describe what New Zealand news bulletins discuss is contrived babble. Not much interest in the world beyond NZ shores so the limited number of news bulletins struggle to fill their time slot with anything of real significance.

None of the above is intended as a harsh criticism of New Zealand as a whole just some of the things I miss about Australia. For any offended Kiwis, a future posting will be things that I DON’T miss about Australia. That will be interesting……