February 22nd - Australia Is Empty
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 22 February 2022
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Strict travel restrictions are having a huge impact on the number of tourists in Australia, and local businesses are feeling the hit. But I find myself experiencing Sydney harbour in a way that no one has done in the modern era, almost entirely to myself.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest news on travelling, whether you're just dreaming of a great escape or actually away and having the time of your life as I am in beautiful Sydney, where, well, I know that there's been a storm or two in the UK, the weather has been generally |
| 0:24.0 | diabolical today, endless downpours, but still, it's the height of summer here. The equivalent |
| 0:33.1 | day in the northern hemisphere would be the 22nd of August. And yet, Sydney is spookily quiet. |
| 0:44.7 | If you walk around the Darling Harbour area, which I think is the closest that Sydney gets |
| 0:51.1 | to the South Bank of London, normally thronged with people. And actually, |
| 0:57.1 | South Bank of London has been pretty much thronged with people, mostly tourists, I guess, |
| 1:03.5 | from other parts of the UK. But in Sydney, I've had the place to myself. Also, the area from Circular Key, where the ferries go to various parts of Sydney Harbour and goodness, that's a wonderful opportunity, all the way up to the Sydney Opera House. Again, somewhere that is normally just full of tourists. |
| 1:28.6 | Well, they've gone talking to one of the managers of a cafe close to circular key. |
| 1:37.1 | She said, well, we haven't got any guests and we haven't got any staff either. |
| 1:43.0 | And we're absolutely reliant on working |
| 1:46.7 | holiday makers to come and spend a few weeks a few months working with us they just haven't |
| 1:54.2 | turned up and interestingly quantantas had a |
| 2:01.1 | promotional tweet |
| 2:03.4 | which effectively said |
| 2:04.8 | right oh we've flown in from |
| 2:06.8 | Los Angeles |
| 2:07.6 | Monday morning |
| 2:08.9 | plane full of tourists |
| 2:11.5 | and well I was at |
| 2:13.5 | Sydney Airport I looked at |
| 2:15.5 | everybody who got off |
| 2:17.3 | from the Qantas flight because I was on the |
... |
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