No? Well I do. It may have been only a 'short! hop over the Tasman Sea but it was still a three and a half hour flight. Yes New Zealand's nearest neighbour is still two in-flight movies away. One if you decided to attempt 'Lord of The Rings'. But thanks to the international time zones knocking two hours off the time, there is enough...well....time..... to eat and be merry once you arrive.
The most striking thing about arriving into Sydney after ten months in Auckland is just how familiar it is. It looks and feels just like a British city. Only with kangaroos. It does though; the underground direction signs are a direct copy of those in London, traffic is still on the left and a squizz over the map reveals names like Liverpool, Darlington, Hyde Park and Kings Cross. I'm half expecting to see a red double decker come around the corner. Even the bridge looks strangely familiar.
And although it's a national landmark, the Sydney Harbour Bridge is actually a Boro lad. North-east born and bred. You see, it was designed and constructed by a Middlesbrough firm Dorman Long and Co Ltd. Fresh from the success of designing and building the Tyne Bridge, that great piece of Smoggie engineering in the wary of Geordieland, they were awarded the tender to design and construct the Sydney Harbour Bridge. And it's not only that. The four huge hinges that support the bridge, weighing not an insubstantial 300T each, were manufactured in Darlington by the Darlington Forge Co. It's very much a northern lad, or lass if you prefer, living down south.
Standing here, looking at iconic image of the bridge and the opera house seems almost surreal. It's an image I've seen many, many times but I have to pinch myself to realise that I'm actually here. In Sydney. Of all if the things we've done over the past 10 months, I suppose it's typical that an engineering wonder should really hammer it home.
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