Macquarie Place

Beneath some shady Moreton Bay fig trees a block or two back from the Quay is this historic little triangle. Look for the actual cannon and anchor from the First Fleet flagship (HMS Sirius ), an ornate-but-defunct 1857 drinking fountain, a National Trust–classified gentlemen’s pissoir (closed) and an 1818 obelisk erected ‘to record that all the public roads leading to the interior of the colony are measured from it’. The park is overlooked by the imposing 19th-century Lands Department Building; the north facade bears statues of Sturt, Hume, Leichhardt and other early Australian movers-and-shakers.