I’m not parochial I love ALL Australian states and territories

VIC is PROGRESSIVE
NSW is VIBRANT
The ACT is EDUCATIONAL
QLD is LAID-BACK
WA is UNIQUE
TAS is BEAUTIFUL
SA is
The NT is AUTHENTIC
The external territories are FASCINATING

wait now I want to talk about my actual fave thing about the various regions

nsw: I like how multipolar it is. like yeah Sydney is huge and sprawling but it feels like you can really make a life outside the capital city without necessarily being a “country person” or driving back to the city all the time

also I really like Newcastle and the Blue Mountains. I complain about Sydney all the time but it’s just for show, it’s a vibrant and beautiful city

WA is fascinating because it’s got such a distinct history and culture to the rest of Australia. it’s also really diverse! WA is not just Perth and Fremantle, it’s also the Pilbara strike, Indonesian sailors, Japanese pearl divers. A whole half a continent

go to Broome it kicks ass. They have an open air cinema where geckos run across the actors faces

The ACT is one of the places I’ve learned the most and I don’t mean I went on a fucking tour of Parliament House or even visited the scholars at ANU I meant I visited the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. It’s a major centre of learning

I would like to visit Canberra another time when the actual museums are open because I’ve heard they’re amazing

i mean it’s haunted as fuck. Full of evil spirits. makes the good stuff people manage even more impressive

Tassie is just so incredibly jam-packed with eccentrics. It feels like it’s never really stopped being a place for exiles from the mainland. Every little valley has a taciturn guy who fled the mainland after heartbreak and now makes award winning cheeses

your friends move to tassie and within six months they’re serenely living in a tree to protest logging or sailing the Tasman on a catamaran. it’s great. I fucking love tassie

there are also people who are “from” tassie (half my family) and they’re also oddballs but in a way that’s harder to put your finger on

QLD history has the highest highs and lowest lows of anywhere in Australia. You’ve got workers councils, Wobblies, Bjelke-Petersen, slavery, Islander worker movements, multiracial communities somehow surviving the height of the White Australia era, the lot.

brisbane is the coolest city in Australia I think. Whenever I go there there’s some tiny underground music show that’s ten times better than anything I’ve heard in Melbourne in years. listen to Jesswar btw https://www.vice.com/en/article/43nexb/jesswars-savage-style-is-helping-brisbane-hip-hop-stand-up

I never realised Crocodile Dundee had any connection with reality until I went to the NT. an amazing place. A real theme park of a state. How the fuck are saltwater crocodiles real. why are there so many pubs on stilts. Why is it so beautiful

“authentic” is a stupid word but it really blew my mind to realise that the NT was real and really like that

every single external territory has the most crazy, fucked up history that throws the rest of the region into sharp relief. I don’t even know where to start. like, yeah, Christmas Island has highways just for crabs! Also it’s a concentration camp founded by forced labour

Is the history of a place like Norfolk Island or Cocos (Keeling) Island stranger or more violent than the history of mainland Australia? I’d say no, but it helped me see Australia much more clearly. Also these histories are fascinating in their own right

I’ve never been to an external territory but I’d like to