30 Days in Sydney by Peter Carey

1) "A great plateau of sandstone which has been eroded and extended with successful landfills. Foresaken nineteenth century prisons and barracks still occupy its crown. Down on the southern waterfront a desolate direct-current power station, its walls lined with mercury vapour flasks, sits waiting for its Frankenstein or Spielberg. Two huge dry docks, where apprentinces dived and swam in boiling Sydney summers, lie abandoned."

In this passage, Carey describes Cockatoo Island, and is unique because unlike the rest of the book that discusses Sydney's beauty, this talks about a shadier side of the city. I like this particular passage because unlike plenty of other travel writing which sometimes seems too complimentary of an area, this makes Sydney seem like plenty of other exotic destinations in terms of the contrast between what he describes here, and the scenic parts of the city. The imagery that Carey uses, like saying "its walls lined with mercury vapour flasks, sits waiting for its Frankenstein or Spielberg," is extremely useful when you're trying to get a sense of what the scenery is like and what the overall atmosphere of the area is like.

2) "Above my head the clouds are racing, but I am in a sort of ecstacy where everything means something and I am awash with the giddy thrilling feelings that must come to schizophrenics when all the secrets of eternity are laid bare."

Carey claims that at this point, Sydney is "his," which is making him so excited. He uses plenty of analogies to help describe things in this novel, which is evident in this passage where he claims he is "awash with the giddy thrilling feelings that must come to schizophrenics when all the secrets of eternity are laid bare." The sheer excitement that he is feeling at this point is enough to make you want to go to Sydney, even before he further describes the landscape and the physical beauty of the area around him. Another thing Carey does to keep the reader interested in the city is describing the history of the city, and the significance of various monuments that he finds during his travels.

3) "As every tax accountant must concede, you cannot write about water without eating fish and you cannot get better fish in Sydney than at Neil Perry's Rockpool Restaurant and that was where Kevin and I were, eating the most perfectly tax-deductible pearl perch, when Clara called."

The inclusion of food and good restaurants is necessary in any travel story, but describing it in an appealing way is important when trying to attract potential tourists. Peter Carey uses the analogy of a tax accountant to describe his pearl perch, which is somewhat bizarre but clever at the same time. Carey weaves notable locations and monuments into his writing, which otherwise focuses on his experience and relationships during his time in Sydney. Here, he describes his favourite seafood restaurant in a way that he describes many of his other favourite landmarks.

4) "Down there is the birthplace of modern Australia, but you wouldn't know it. The expressway is like a steel wall, cutting water off from earth, slicing like a knife across the moment of our birth."

Carey, an Australian, not only provides insight through the eyes of a tourist, but also passes along useful historical information about the country, Sydney in particular. This is uncommon in travel writing, because so much of it is written through the eyes of someone who is visiting a location for the first time, not someone native to the country. Combining Carey's sensory detail and vast knowledge of the country's roots and origins allows for a much greater understanding of what the country is really like. He effectively uses rhetorical devices (like the simile of a "steel wall") to enhance his descriptions of the scenery, the history, and the local custom, which is essential in any writing.

5) "It is a terrifying exposition of hell and I tried to escape it, to find some more pleasant place for my mind to rest. Typically I imagined the ocean but the Australian ocean was no escape. It was endless, relentless, merciless, and it washed against the sandstone cliffs out at the end of Old South Head Road."

This passage is unique because normally, one would want to provide an appealing description of something as monumental as the ocean, something that, by itself, would be enough to make many people want to visit Australia. From a personal point of view, every ocean-side location I've ever been to has been soothing, partly because the climate is usually very warm, but the sound of waves crashing up against the beach is usually a calming experience for many people. This, however, is Carey's own personal opinion on what the ocean is to him, as many people who visit the country probably enjoy the Australian ocean as much, if not more, than any other they had previously been too. Normally, I wouldn't approve of a travel writing piece that provides such a frightening description of the ocean, but this particular case is consistent with the rest of his writing, which provides his own personal view on various Australian landmarks.

6) "How can I hope to convey to any reader my idea of Sydney? I have seen nothing to equal it in the way of landlocked scenery, in the particular relationship between the races, in the easy tolerance of crime and corruption, in the familiar mingling you can witness on the footpath outside Bar Coluzzi any morning..."

Carey reflects on his time spent in Sydney, and tries to pass along his own personal feelings on what the city means to him. His scenic, romantic portrayal of Sydney throughout the course of the book is enough to attract anyone to Australia, but this passage leads one to believe that his own personal idea of Sydney goes much deeper than that. The opening sentence of this passage intrigues the reader to want to see Sydney for themselves, and to have their own personal experience just to see what exactly Carey is talking about. It makes Australia seem like a welcoming place to visit, and a place that is very difficult to leave at the same time.

7) "I remember the road now, and i began to recall why I had come here so rarely. It was not that I ever failed to be thrilled and astonished by the extraordinary drama of the Blue Mountains: The sublime vistas, the plunging waterfalls, the teetering stairs, the dizzy ledges, but this road always made me despondent."

It seems as though everyone who writes about their travels does it in their own unique way, and this is a good example of Carey's style; he uses adjectives to describe scenery like "dizzy ledges" and "teetering stairs" that aren't necessarily conventional, but still make sense to the reader and provides an interesting description of his surroundings. This passage is another example of his ability to describe parts of Sydney that the reader may not be familiar with (Sydney Harbour Bridge, etc.) but are still significant nonetheless.

8) "But at other times when there has been heavy rain - and Sydney is subtropical so 12 inches in 3 days is nothing to us - then all that weight of water gathers in the Hawkesbury and this brown liquid spews itself out into the ocean and if this happens at a time when there is a strong easterly gale blowing against the tidal stream and if it happens that the tide is also running out, then it is a place of ultimate evil."

Though this is not an appealing passage in terms of the beauty of Sydney, it is an appealing piece of writing because of how easy it is for Carey to describe every aspect of Sydney in such great detail. He is able to explain seemingly insignificant locations in Sydney through the eyes of a local, and his familiarity with the area makes everything easy to understand. Despite his love for the city as whole, he is not afraid to say that the Hawkesbury River can be "a place of ultimate evil." Obviously, every city has its ugly side, something that is often excluded from travel writing, so this is an interesting touch to Carey's journey.

9) "Late rising kangaroos lingered along the dirt track. Honeyeaters fluttered through the trees. Bushwalkers, some carrying babies on their backs, strode off in search of local attractions such as Mount Cloudmaker, Big Misty and Dance Floor Cave."

Carey's ability to provide multiple descriptions of his surroundings is essential when allowing the reader to envision the wildlife. Including descriptions of wildlife is important for travel writing regardless of where you go, but it is especially important in a place like Australia where so many species of animals are foreign to almost anywhere else in the world. Carey is able to instill an image into the readers' mind of what every scene is like, which makes this such an interesting narrative.

10) "So we drove back into the city across the bridge, which caused me not the least anxiety when someone else was driving, and in half an hour, having made a stop for the Diet Coke which Sheridan was now drinking in terrifying quantity, we tooled along the charmless de-natured landscape which is the Parramatta Road."

Carey's entire novel is not entirely devoted to describing Australian scenery; there is a story within his travels, and this particular passage provides some comic relief. Carey has many good friends in Sydney, but this particular character worries him and tries to explain that this road is Sydney's "spine". I found that by including one's own personal relationships in travel writing, you can allow the reader to envision what their own experience might be like should they travel to that location. This is a very unique account of Carey's travels, and is definitely worth reading for anyone interested in travel writing.