Jim Eagles: There for one another

Purely from a traveller's point of view, you wouldn't necessarily pick Australia as your nearest neighbour. I mean it's the place most of us go to when we travel overseas, but I suspect that's only because it's the closest foreign country and the cheapest to get to.

It would certainly feel more exciting if, say, we had Europe as a neighbour. Just imagine being able to pop across to Provence, Tuscany, the Algarve, Bavaria or Catalonia for the weekend for the price of a Ryanair flight.

Last time I visited my wife's home town in the south of England, they were advertising hovercraft trips to France for 50 return (that's just $130). Just last week I flicked on to www.lastminute.com and found packages of five to seven days from Britain to Prague for $130, to Paris for $170 and to Amsterdam for $195.

The cheapest package I could find here was on Flight Centre's website and it was for seven nights on the Gold Coast for $365 (plus $170 in departure charges, surcharges and so on).

That's good value but, with all due respect, the Gold Coast isn't exactly Paris, and by the look of it Poms can pick up a holiday in the French capital for about a third of what it costs us to get to Surfer's Paradise.

On the other hand, Australia does have some advantages, not least that it's reasonably easy for New Zealanders to read the road signs and even to understand what the Aussies are saying, so a trip there is a fairly gentle introduction to the joys and challenges of overseas travel.

Furthermore, it is a big country with an amazing variety of destinations, from arid deserts to lush farmlands, from thrill rides to art galleries, from vineyard restaurants to outback pubs, from surf beaches to forests filled with wildlife.

Visiting Australia can give you a taste of Greek and Italian cafes, American theme parks, British pubs, the African desert, French wine country, Mediterranean beaches, Asian food, London theatre and German music - not the real thing, sure, but good in their own right. And there's the great landscape, wildlife and Aboriginal culture.

Over the years I've managed to get to most parts of Australia - apart, for some reason, from Tasmania - and I like all of them.

Sydney, for instance, is a world-class city, like Auckland in a way, full of bustle and excitement but with the tranquillity of the harbour always close at hand. For me, the single most marvellous landmark in Australasia is the Opera House , a truly iconic design sitting on a truly iconic site, which every time I see it makes me gnash my teeth in frustration that we ended up with the Aotea Centre.

Melbourne is another great city. A few years ago my wife and I went on a camping trip through the Northern Territory and, as a bit of luxury at the end, shouted ourselves a few days in the wonderful old Windsor Hotel, the Phantom of the Opera at the magnificent Princess Theatre and a visit to the marvellous National Gallery of Victoria.

My abiding memory is turning up at the Windsor, dirty and dishevelled after our camping, half-expecting to be turned away by this posh haven of the squatocracy, but being made to feel utterly welcome. Within a couple of hours, clean and tidy again, we were feeling like royalty, sipping champagne and waiting for Rob Guest to take the stage. These days the Lion King is the big show in Melbourne, at the resplendent Regent Theatre.

If you want to see the Princess Theatre in all its glory, right now there's a stage version of Dirty Dancing (link provided below)

Canberra has a reputation for dullness but I've found it a fascinating city with good restaurants, striking public buildings and great museums and art galleries.

The Australian War Memorial is moving and magnificent and Parliament and the National Museum are bold statements of nationhood well worth seeing to get an understanding of what it means to be Australian.

The National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery are so good that I'd like to go back just to have more time to wander through.

But my favourite city in Australia is Adelaide, partly because it's not too big but also because of the wonderful mix it offers of great food, art, music, history and wildlife. The city is full of great restaurants, although the best place to enjoy the tastes of South Australia is the fabulous Adelaide Market where you can savour the smells, tastes and sights of traditional pasta sauces, crisp peking duck, kangaroo mettwurst, buffalo feta, crunchy chrysanthemum leaves, pickled olives, creamy chocolates, delightfully smelly cheeses, live lobsters, dried local fruits and a whole lot more besides.

Even if you're not there during the Adelaide Festival of the Arts there's always plenty to see and, if you're lucky, you might - as we did - catch a Beethoven concert in the charming Old Town Hall.

Adelaide is also home to the fabulous Warrawong Sanctuary which, unfortunately, is closed until early next year for an upgrade. This is the place which invented the concept of the mainland island, keeping out pests like cats with a fence, where you can eat fine food while animals which elsewhere in Australia are endangered bounce around your feet.

Australia's wildlife is endlessly fascinating, especially to someone from a country almost without native mammals, marsupials or reptiles, but if I had to restrict myself to only one place to see it I would choose Warrawong.

Similarly, Australia has plenty of magnificent national parks, but if I could only go to one I think I'd choose Kakadu, in the Northern Territory, for its combination of amazing landscapes, wildlife, plants and Aboriginal rock art. A better place to see Aboriginal art is the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin (see link below).

For marine life, the choice would have to be Western Australia's Shark Bay, which I visited last month.

Its combination of dolphins, dugongs, whales, sharks and stromatolites is simply amazing (please see links below).

While I've gone on about the cities, one aspect of our neighbour often overlooked by visiting New Zealanders is the huge number of delightful small towns.

My personal favourite is the lovely New South Wales goldmining town of Gulgong, home of the fascinating Henry Lawson Centre, the oldest continuously operating opera house in the land, a fine local museum, magnificent ceramics made from the local clay, lots of beautiful old buildings (some of which have featured on Australian banknotes) and a friendly atmosphere.

If those favourites sound a bit staid, I also love the mad, thrilling rides you find in the Gold Coast theme parks.

The most brutal I've been on is Lethal Weapon at Movie World and the one that produced the loudest screams (not from me, I swear) was Wipeout at Dreamworld.

Taken all together, that makes Australia an exciting place.

Maybe I should change my mind.

Would it really be more interesting to have Europe parked across the ditch? Or are we better off sticking with the fascinating country that The Lord of the Rings made famous as the wasteland of Mordor?

Tough choice.