When I went to Melbourne as a bright eyed thing a couple of years ago, I was intimidated by the cool places people went to, and how well everyone dressed. But after a couple of years in Auckland, I was surprised to find Melbourne seemed relatively homely and relaxed. 

I love how in Melbourne, there seems to be no divide between sports fan and music fan. The bars with gigs often look like old man sports pubs in New Zealand - with TVs in the front room playing AFL, and a gig in the back room.

Not having a recession doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is shiny and flash. Some of the grimy shopping areas and small women’s clothing chains reminded me of places that have closed down in New Zealand. It also seems like there are heaps of independent book and record stores left.

People eat out in Australia. In Melbourne, bars usually serve dinner, and people actually turn up to eat a pub meal, drink there for a couple of hours and watch the gig in the back room.

I’d never been to Sydney before. It’s a very pretty city. I found myself wishing the place was a little messier. I’ve heard older musicians talk about the grueling gig circuit in Sydney in the 70s and 80s. When live music was more popular, and central Sydney wasn’t so gentrified, it must have been an amazing rock and roll town.

Venues are very thin in the centre now, probably due to high rents and noise constraints (bars always have signs telling people to be quiet as they leave, for the neighbours’ sake). But there seem to be cool things happening outside of venues - Changing Lanes festival on Saturday had about 40 local bands playing on Devonshire St.

There are surreal parallels to Auckland. Sydney’s Harbour bridge was built 25 years before Auckland’s, but they still had the foresight to have trains running over it, as well as cars and walkers. The train service is brilliant, but buses are still a pain - and Auckland has better digital signage. Just like in Auckland, I ended up walking everywhere for small distances in Sydney, where in Melbourne I would just take a tram.

A tip for a visitor to Sydney looking for the cool stuff. After the train (yes train) from the airport,  get off at Central station, and walk up the hill to your east. Get a $5 taco at El Loco on Foveaux St. I only wish I had found that before my last day.