I've been to six of those ..... 'should' really get to Perth and Auckland some time, too...

It's the harbour that causes all the traffic pain in Sydney.... nice to look at but crap for infrastructure.

You DO realise Sydney has more wet weather than Melbourne, don't you?

Then there's the 'Major Events'..... just about the only ones Melbourne doesn't host are...

Tour Downunder [Adelaide]

RedBull air race [Perth]

WRC [rallye] [Perth]

No mention of Sydney.... heck, even the Sydney to Hobart makes a point of LEAVING Sydney ....

Oh...forgot....Bathurst...the Yobbos' car race ...You have that.....

Yeah.... but it all comes down in one big deluge then goes away..... Melbourne's slowly drizzles like forever....   

but.... it's lovely to be out on the harbour having a lovely smorgasbord luncheon in amongst 'em as they leave... then the silly buggers are on their own...

Melbourne has certainly worked hard at getting the major sporting events... it's more of a sporting orientated people down there....  (we just like the big ones like the Olympics...  )

Sydney also misses out on the major art exhibitions which pisses me off no end... I've been told it's because Vic and ACT gov gives more $ funding them.. for insurance etc than NSW... hoping that will change in the future. 

Been meaning to come down to the Tutankhamun at the Melb Museum.... Egypt's always been on my bucket list... but I remember seeing a Tut one at the Sydney Museum, I think in the 90's, which was excellent.

Fred Williams is also about to do the Canberra and Melbourne run...but then again... he is a Melbourne artist... not many people in Sydney have even heard of him.  I did get to the last major one he had at the Melb Art Gallery quite awhile back now though...

We are however getting Picasso at the end of the year.... looking forward to that...  

There are pros and cons to both cities... but I can see why Melb was chosen as more/most livable... we are, at the moment, paying people $7.000 to sell up and leave Sydney and go to rural town centres.... too many people want to live here... and planning just isn't keeping up...  link..

and I so miss Pellegrini's  

We had those [first] ...and the C'wealth Games too....

Re the Yarts ... my sister's portrait of the PM is in the gallery in Sydney .... she's up there frequently.

As for 'Big Ones' ... I work at 4 of them - The Australian Formula One GrandPrix [second oldest - only France is older]...the MotoGP ... The World Superbikes, and the third largest [after those 2] Bike meet... The Historics at Phillip Island - gets people like Agostini there, even.

Even the oldest [first] road race [bikes] - older than Le Tour ... is in Melbourne [Melbourne to Warrnambool]...

Aw shucks, syd, think nothing of it.

Hehe, at least I didn't say "strutting the streets of Melbourne like a Macho, macho man..... "

Oh bugger, that ruins the illusion of sunnies and a peaked, open face motorcycle helmet, don't it?    [time to start wearing my specs I think]

Orright then..... I've amended it

"I mean, who else brings down property values by wearing a F1A Race Official's cap and worrying the crap out of everybody that neighbourhood streets are being turned into a race track."

I suppose that's what makes the two cities so different... they shouldn't try to compete.... Melb does some things better than Sydney and vice versa....

It's damn annoying when they close the Harbour Bridge for a marathon or a cycling event... to close a Bridge that connects the City to the North Shore for any period of time without good reason is ridiculous... put them out at Homebush...

Will look for it when I'm in at the Picasso exh 'round Nov... would like to see it.... I remember googling it when you mentioned it in a thread last year.  Very impressive.....  I particularly like the eyes.... there's a soft intensity about them...    link..     She'd probably enjoy the Fred Williams exhibition...

That's the thing.... Melbourne people do support their sporting events far more than Sydney people would...

especially the footy... which I could never understand the status of 'religion' it holds in Victoria..

did ya see this...  link..   

what about Tasmania , as a lot of people here in Queensland recon that Tasmania is not part of Australia, how do you convince them that it is

Sigh....had it not been for continental drift, I could be living south of the equator as well.

I'd love to see every bit of Australia, including it's "odd" creatures. ( no offense meant if you fall into this category)   For now I'll have to settle for Google Earth and occasional trips to the zoo.

I love the desert and the beach and you have the best of both on the planet.

it's not a bad country I guess, I would love to visit the USA one day

and we like to keep it that way ...

GO THE CATS!!! .... What's wrong Eddie, cat got your tongue.

We are Geelong, the greatest team of all
We are Geelong; we’re always on the ball...

I was born in Currie, King Island....so I'm Tasmanian....and am likely the ONLT Tasmanian who has never been there...

Yet.

My mum and dad lived on King Island many moons ago, long before I was born.

Hmmp,  I now know who my friends are just kidding taz, oh well 

two heads are better than one, Mrs starkers.  If people think we are not part of Oz, they will just have to miss out 

We play the game as it should be played
At home or far away ...

so true lol

For me, Ipswich, Queensland, Australia is the world's most livable city.... and it would take an almighty convincing argument to make me feel otherwise.  

For one; it's because I live here and I haven't the inclination at my age to move anywhere else ever again; two, it has everything I need and more; and three, cos it's a smallish country town and is so much better than living in a sprawling metropolis with impersonal hustle-bustle everywhere and skyscrapers that block out the sun.  

Nope, I never liked big cities that much, so living out here in the boondocks of Ipswich suits me perfectly.  Okay, so our Bremer River isn't as impressive as the Yarra, and it's an upside down river - water on the bottom, mud on the top - but there are some nice family oriented parks and walkways beside it these days that help give Ipswich a greater feeling of community 

Oh, and we don't have a congested harbour that's full of sharks, shady business ventures and likely a few underbelly figures from yesteryear, so I'm not gonna see large and impressive ocean liners, either.  Bit hard 90+ klms inland, but I occasionally see a speedboat on the Bremer...  and that'll do me nicely, thank you.

Yup, Ipswich, Queensland, Australia is bloody great place to be.

Clearly you've never seen the Yarra....  [we invented upside down rivers]

Yes, and it was clean compared to the Bremer  Seriously, it's that thick with mud sometimes... er, most of the time, it is a rich creamy brown... the colour of clay.

Yup, if you were to scoop up water in a miner's pan and sieve for about half an hour, you'd be left with enough mud to make enough bricks to build a granny flat down the back or a decent extension to the house.

Hey John, how many dead people are there at present in Holly Hill Memorial Park cemetery just down the road from you?

I grew up on the Yarra.... well.. beside it... in the 50's & 60's...

We lived in Kew down the bottom of Molesworth St over the Boulevard... now called River Retreat... only 3 houses down there in the bush in those days... nice steep hill for the billy cart...

We had our first German Shepherd to protect us from the mental patients who used to escape with monotonous regularity from the Kew Cottages Mental Asylum up the road....

From our river frontage... my sister taught me how to swim... her way was..... tie the longest dog rope round my waist and throw me in the river.... told me to look at how the Shepherd was swimming and copy that....  after nearly drowning the poor dog trying to hold onto her to keep afloat... I eventually cottoned on to.....the dog paddle...

Used to be quite a few snakes whip around us in the water.... didn't find out til years later they were river brown snakes and very deadly.... fortunately... very shy as well....

We had a burrow with a family of platypuses on our bank as well.... used to sit there quietly for ages waiting for them to come out... was always kept secret so people didn't know where it was and come 'round and disturb them.