First ever direct flights from Sydney to London!

Qantas and Airbus announced the routes and aircraft to fly Project Sunrise starting next year, the carrier’s non-stop flights from Sydney, to London and New York. It means a lot, and I’ll attempt to explain why. “Hidden in the summer for a million years” Australia, you’re standing in it! I’ve been back here for more than a decade now, but I still feel like a guest in my birth country. There are mannerisms that still trip me up, cultural references I don’t get, and social interactions that throw me for a loop. I’m very much playing immigrant on “easy mode” given I have a (mostly) Australian accent and look the part, but I still surprise people when I’m not able to share in some touchstone of Australian identity. Seeing the country from the outside though has given me an appreciation for what makes Australia—and Australians—so unique. And what’s struck me is just how much geography defines us. The first people who moved to this beautiful land lived here for tens of thousands of years…