It’s Sunday midday in Sydney. I’m sitting on my sheltered balcony in uber hip Surry Hills and it’s absolutely throwing it down. It’s been like this since last night – I can’t leave the apartment. The heavens have opened and the angels are crying.

Every time I start a paragraph about what’s happened in Christchurch, it is vacuous and hollow and I feel it is not my place to write it. It is a shared grief, but it is not for me to appropriate it. Words don’t work. At least mine don’t. I’ll just say here in Sydney there’s a sense of deep kinship – you can hear it, read it and see it etched on people’s faces in the streets. It is on everyone’s mind, it is in everyone’s hearts.

I feel tethered to this part of the world, as if part of me belongs here. As if this has more of a part to play in my life. I could easily spend another eight weeks or eight months in New Zealand. But I now miss home – family and friends especially. I’m already in the departure lounge. I can smell the leatherette seats, feel the sterile aircon, I’m checking that the perforated bit of the boarding pass hasn’t fallen off.

In Sydney I’ve mixed old haunts with new discoveries. The politics are every bit as scary as before. Like at Barangaroo, where three years ago I wrote about the fake use of aboriginal culture and place names, there’s Packer’s monumental casino dwarfing the skyline as it rises and rises, obscuring the views and dominating all it surveys. There’s a brand new HSBC building, the consulting firms and the lawyers have moved in, and there are battalions of expense account restaurants, all decked out in black marble and chrome. In a previous life, I probably would have loved it.

The community on the hill overlooking this place for 150 years at ramshackle Miller’s Point has been kicked out, their cottages sold off by the authorities for $1.9 million each. Except, people who were tipped the wink bought them at a second past midnight and sold them on for $2.9m. I wandered around, talking to new residents who waxed lyrical about their bijou houses, how they’re being done up ‘in keeping’, and how the casino will see them make a further killing yet. The community here has been dispersed to public housing on the edge of the city. The promise they’d be rehoused locally with all the money raised has evaporated like hot air. I did my bit for social cohesion by introducing two neighbours who had never yet said hello to one another. A and S were nice enough people, but their propensity for grabbing the blinkers and shoving them on tight was staggering. This all passes for progress here.

But then there are the galleries, the gigs, the restaurants, the walking, the people and my friends. I’ve found some great new places in and out of the city. At one point I had the culture shock shakes and ran for the hills – to the Blue Mountains. This despite the forecast for torrential rain and thunderstorms.

I hiked some pretty adventurous tracks, with the weather coming ever closer in. Visibility was down to five feet and my new Goretex jacket wasn’t coping. Even the raucous birds were silent. The stone along the narrow shelves high up in the storm was slippery underfoot and I suppose treacherous. But I’ve become either competent, blasé – or plain stupid. I didn’t meet another walker for six hours. I was in way over my head. I tripped and nearly went over the edge, but I was reassured by the fact I wouldn’t have seen how far I was falling. I did make it back by nightfall or I’d have been in actual trouble. Crying wolf? Well, at least crying possum…

Thank you for reading, and for letting me know how much you’ve enjoyed it. This time the stats say it’s been read in over 20 countries. OK, it’s true, I only got one hit from the Maldives, but whoever you all are in Cyprus – thank you! Obviously, I enjoy it too: there’s the joy of writing, but more it really helps me to understand how I feel about a place.

I’m still taking it in. I’ve been struck not so much by The Best Hike, My Favourite Restaurant, My Best Experience, The Best Conversation, but just how beautiful New Zealand is, physically and spiritually. How the Maori principle that we are here as custodians of the land runs through the way everyone lives, whoever their people are. Yes there is space and natural beauty in abundance, but there is also a will to respect and nurture that. That’s heightened by the sense of the fragile – living along the giant fault-line that could (and does) crack at any moment. If it’s possible to be in love with a government department, then I am besotted by the Department of Conservation. Places are managed for every thing and everyone. Just this last week, a huge area has been added to the Kahurangi National Park in South Island, protecting more plants and birds. There’s a real sense people care about the natural world, that they live as part of it, and that it’s not there for their gratification. They are one with it.

I bought a camera. I haven’t owned one since I was 15. I’ve taken 3,000 photos – but it’s just not my medium. Not even my average. Let’s get this in perspective. I take perhaps the worst photos of anyone I know. I can’t focus the damn thing, even on auto. I can’t shoot straight. My compositional sense defies conventional logic. I don’t point the lens the right way. So the 3,000 was to set up monkeys with typewriters. I think I’ve got five decent shots, and two of them are selfies. Taken by another tourist.

Amazingly there are no New Zealand songs coming out of this trip. No ditties about Kiwis scratching around at night, and nothing about the birds of that name either. No po-faced ballads of the 1931 Napier earthquake. And no, (thank you for the ideas M) nothing about a lost suitcase either, or turning Japanese. At least I don’t really think so. You’re all safe – for now.

Thanks for reading. See you back home I hope: you do need lessons in New Zealand wine. I promise not to bring my photos.