I interrupt my usual travel writing (no, this is not a travel blog) with something closer to home.

Pizza.

Or more specifically, the endless wave of pizzerias now blighting the UK, spreading across cities like an unstoppable beige tide of sourdough, San Marzano tomatoes, and buffalo mozzarella.

I am now in Koh Kood and shifting here has been a change of pace.

After the bustle of Bangkok, and the constant movement of travelling through Australia, it’s been quietly comforting to spend a couple of weeks in one spot. To wake up without needing to think too far ahead. To let the days arrive as they are.

Familiar unfamiliarity is often a feature of travel.

A trip to New York turns a lifetime of television and film into reality. Manhattan becomes a walking set of “wasn’t this in…” and “isn’t that where…”. Paris and Rome carry a different kind of recognition, the inherited romanticism of the Seine or the Trevi Fountain, places we feel we already know long before we arrive.

Sydney offers those picture-postcard moments of familiarity on first visit too. The Harbour Bridge, so often a backdrop to New Year’s Eve news stories, watched from afar while the Australians celebrate and you wait for the clock to crawl round to that mate’s house party back home.

The sun rises above the horizon, spilling gold across the sea and over the hundreds of pilgrims gathered at the Byron lighthouse. A middle-aged Italian man begins singing the opening lines of My Girl. Not an obvious soundtrack for a warm, cloud-free January morning, but a welcome one nonetheless.

Long before the sun appears around 6am, the streets of this small but famous New South Wales beach town are already alive. People of all ages run, walk, and cycle through the quiet roads. Being outdoors and connected to nature feels like a default setting here, something that comes up again and again, and one of the reasons Australia, and Byron Bay in particular, feels so appealing.

Usually, a rainy day would put me in a bad mood. Perhaps surprising, given I come from the north of England, but it’s never something one really looks forward to, especially when travelling in the hope of sunny climes.

And yet, on this latest trip, I’ve noticed a shift in mindset. Rainy days no longer bring the same sense of mardiness they once did. Of course, they can be a welcome relief from the heat, but more importantly they feel like nature’s way of saying, have a day off.