Sights in Sydney
-
A
Sydney Opera House
Overcome with admiration for the Sydney Opera House, famous architect Louis Kahn said, ‘The sun did not know how beautiful its light was until it was reflected off this building.’ Danish architect Jørn Utzon’s competition-winning 1956 design is Australia’s most recognisable icon. It’s mused to have drawn inspiration from orange segments, palm fronds and Maya temples, and has been poetically likened to a typewriter stuffed with scallop shells and the sexual congress of turtles. While viewed from any angle it’s architecturally orgasmic, the ferry view approaching Circular Quay is hard to beat.
The predicted four-year construction started in 1959. After a tumult…
reviewed
-
B
Sydney Harbour Bridge
Whether they’re driving over it, climbing up it, rollerblading across it or sailing under it, Sydneysiders adore their bridge and swarm around it like ants on ice cream. Dubbed the ‘old coathanger’, it’s a spookily big object – moving around town you’ll catch sight of it in the corner of your eye and get a fright! Perhaps Sydney poet Kenneth Slessor said it best: ‘Day and night, the bridge trembles and echoes like a living thing.’
Vital statistics: 134m high, 502m long, 49m wide and 53,000 tonnes. The massive bridge links the CBD with North Sydney, crossing the harbour at one of its narrowest points. The two halves of chief engineer JJC Bradfield’s mighty …
reviewed
-
C
Aquabumps Gallery
Photographer/surfer Eugene Tan has been snapping photos of Sydney’s sunrises, surf and sand for 10 years and his colourful prints hang in this cool space, a splash from Bondi Beach.
reviewed
-
D
Sydney Aquarium
This place brings in more paying visitors than any other attraction in Australia – even with its hefty admission charges. Aqua fans enter through huge, kitsch, metallic shark jaws into 160m of underwater tunnels, looking at 11,000 happy Australian sea creatures. Highlights include clownfish, an intimidating array of sharks in the Open Ocean section, and the Great Barrier Reef exhibit’s swoon-worthy Van Gogh coral colours. Latest additions are dugongs "Pig"and "Wuru"in the Mermaid Lagoon section. Needless to say, kids love it. Arrive early to beat the crowds (but less chatter makes it harder to ignore the piped-in indigestive whale noises). Disabled access is good. Booking…
reviewed
-
E
Sydney Harbour
Sydney's stunning harbour has melded and shaped the local psyche since the first days of settlement, and today it's both a major working port and the city's sparkling playground. Its waters, beaches, islands and shorefront parks offer all the swimming, sailing, picnicking, walking and real-estate fantasies you could wish for.
The best way to view the harbour is by private yacht (yeah, right). Lacking this, just take a harbour cruise or catch any one of the many ferries that ply its waters. You can also fly above it via a scenic flight. The Manly ferry offers vistas of the harbour east of the bridge, while the Parramatta RiverCats cover the west. You can also visit some of…
reviewed
-
F
State Library of NSW
The estimable State Library holds over five million tomes, including Captain Cook’s and Joseph Banks’ journals and Captain (later Governor) Bligh’s log from the mutinous HMAV Bounty. Also worth checking out are innovative temporary exhibitions in the galleries, and the elaborately sculpted bronze doors and grand atrium of the neoclassical Mitchell Wing (1910) – an elegant temple of knowledge clad in milky marble, with a map of Tasman’s journeys in the mosaic floor. Beneath one of the windows on the Macquarie St side of the building is a sculpture of explorer Matthew Flinders, with his intrepid cat Trim on hand. Disabled access is excellent.
reviewed
-
G
Tamarama Beach
Surrounded by high cliffs, Tamarama has a deep tongue of sand with just 80m of shoreline. Diminutive, yes, but ever-present rips make Tamarama the most dangerous patrolled beach in New South Wales; it’s often closed to swimmers. When it earned its nickname ‘Glamarama’ in the ’80s, Tamarama was probably Sydney’s gayest beach. Reflecting increasing acceptance, the gay guys have migrated en masse to North Bondi, leaving the huge waves here to the surfers. It’s hard to picture now, but between 1887 and 1911 a roller coaster looped out over the water as part of an amusement park.
reviewed
-
H
Powerhouse Museum
A short walk from Darling Harbour, Sydney’s hippest and most kid-focused museum whirrs away inside the former power station for Sydney’s defunct tram network. High-voltage interactive demonstrations wow school groups with the low-down on how lightning strikes, magnets grab and engines growl. Look out for the Strasburg Clock replica located on level four and a guitar once owned by AC/DC’s Angus Young on level two. Grab a map of the museum once you’re inside (you’ll need it), and a free copy of the Sydney Morning Herald on your way out. Disabled access is good.
reviewed
-
I
Circular Quay
Circular Quay is built around Sydney Cove and is considered by many to be the focal point of the city. The first European settlement in Australia grew around the Tank Stream, which now runs underground into the harbour here. For many years this was the shipping centre of Sydney, but it's now both a commuting hub and a recreational space.
Transport abounds - here you'll find ferry quays, a railway station and the Overseas Passenger Terminal. There are also harbour walkways, restaurants, buskers, parks and the Museum of Contemporary Art. And, of course, you can't miss the Sydney Opera House.
reviewed
-
J
Bronte Beach
A winning family-orientated beach hemmed in by sandstone cliffs and a grassy park, Bronte lays claims to the title of the oldest surf life-saving club in the world (1903). Contrary to popular belief, the beach is named after Lord Nelson, who doubled as the Duke of Bronte (a place in Sicily), and not the famous literary sorority. There’s a kiosk and a changing room attached to the surf club, and outdoor seating near the coin-op barbecues. Parking is hellish.
reviewed
Advertisement
-
Cronulla
Cronulla is a beachy surf suburb south of Botany Bay, it’s looong surf beach stretching beyond the dunes to the Botany Bay refineries. It’s an edgy place, with dingy fish-and-chip shops, insomnious teens and a ragged sense of impending ‘something’, which in 2005 erupted into racial violence. The ’70s cult novel Puberty Blues captured the local teen scene.
reviewed
-
K
Museum of Contemporary Art
A slice of Gotham City on Circular Quay West, the stately art-deco MCA has been raising even the most open-minded Sydney eyebrows since 1991. Constantly changing controversial exhibitions from Australia and overseas range from the incredibly hip to in-your-face, sexually explicit and profoundly disturbing. Impressive. There’s a cool cafe and a museum shop here, too.
reviewed
-
L
Speakers’ Corner
Recline on a patch of lawn in front of the Art Gallery of NSW and listen to religious zealots, nutters, political extremists, homophobes, hippies and academics express their earnest opinions. Some of them have something interesting to say; most are just plain mad. Either way, it makes for an interesting afternoon. BYO soapbox.
reviewed
-
M
Marramarra National Park
The 118-sq-km Marramarra National Park, south of the Hawkesbury, has vehicle access south of Wisemans Ferry. There’s free bush camping on the river at Gentlemans Halt and Marramarra Creek.
reviewed
-
N
Parramatta
Twenty-four kilometres west of Sydney, Parramatta (population 145,000), a Daruag Aboriginal name meaning ‘the place where eels lie down’, was Australia’s second European settlement. Sydney’s sandy soils were lousy for growing carrots – Parramatta’s river plains were chosen instead. During the 1980s, the local Rugby League team the Parramatta Eels were unbeatable, their acid-wash-clad, mullet-proud fans perpetuating Sydneysiders’ view of Parramatta as little more than a low-brow shopping-mall ’burb full of insane Neanderthals. A rash of horrendous architectural disservices has augmented this perception, but with the ’80s dead and buried, Parramatta has got on w…
reviewed
-
O
Botany Bay National Park
The 458-hectare national park straddles the heads of Botany Bay, 15km south of Sydney Harbour. Captain Cook landed here in 1770, naming the bay after the botanical specimens his naturalist Joseph Banks found here. Banks suggested it would be a good place to incarcerate a few crims, but when the First Fleet arrived in summer 18 years later, they weren’t inclined to agree; the scorched vegetation and limited water supplies were a far cry from Banks’ wintry paradise. They soon relocated to Sydney Harbour. Cook’s monument-marked landing place is on the southern side of the park in trailer-trashy Kurnell. The Discovery Centre conveys the impact of European arrival, and h…
reviewed
-
P
Martin Place
Studded with imposing edifices, long, lean Martin Pl was closed to traffic in 1971 but has only ever been partially successful as a pedestrian mall. Once the corporate crowds go home, the ramps, stairs and fountains are converged upon by skateboarders and film crews. As iconic as the Opera House in its time (1874), 1 Martin Pl is a beautifully colonnaded Victorian palazzo that houses Sydney’s General Post Office. Beyond the stamps and envelopes, it’s been gutted, stabbed with office towers and transformed into the Westin Sydney hotel, swanky shops, restaurants and bars, including Crystal Bar and Senate Bar. Inspired by Italian Renaissance palaces, architect James Barn…
reviewed
-
Q
South Head
The narrow peninsula heading out to South Head is one of Sydney’s most sublime spots. Approaching from Bondi, as Old South Head Rd leaves the sheer ocean cliffs to descend to Watsons Bay, the view of Sydney Harbour is breathtaking.
On the harbour side, Watsons Bay was once a small fishing village, evidenced by the tiny heritage cottages that pepper the suburb’s narrow streets (and now cost a fortune). While you’re here, tradition demands that you sit in the beer garden at Watsons Bay Hotel at sunset and watch the sun fall behind the disembodied Harbour Bridge, jutting up above Bradley’s Head.
On the ocean side of the peninsula, opposite Watsons Bay, The Gap is a d…
reviewed
-
R
Art Gallery of NSW
With its classical Greek frontage and modern rear end, the ultrareputable Art Gallery of NSW plays a prominent and gregarious role in Sydney society. There are three permanent collections: Australian, European (post-16th century) and Asian. Don’t miss classic Australian paintings by Brett Whiteley, Arthur Streeton, Sidney Nolan and Lloyd Reese, and the Yiribana Gallery’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art.
Blockbuster international touring exhibitions arrive regularly (past examples include Man Ray and Caravaggio), and there are free guided tours on the hour from 11am to 2pm (Tuesday to Sunday). Kids swarm to the GalleryKids Sunday program, offering workshops, …
reviewed
-
S
Taronga Zoo
A 12-minute ferry ride from Circular Quay or a short drive from Manly, Taronga Zoo has 75 hectares of bushy harbour hillside chock-full of kangaroos, koalas and similarly hirsute Australians. The zoo’s 4000 critters have million-dollar harbour views but seem blissfully unaware of the privilege. The animals are well looked after, with more natural open enclosures than cages.
Highlights include the nocturnal platypus habitat, the new Great Southern Oceans section, the Asian elephants display, seal and bird shows, and the nightly Roar & Snore – an overnight family experience with a night-time safari, a barbecue and tents under the stars. Animal displays and feedings happen…
reviewed
Advertisement
-
T
Vaucluse House
Sydney’s last remaining 19th-century harbourside estate, Vaucluse House (1828) is an imposing, turreted specimen of Gothic Australiana set among 10 hectares of lush gardens. Decorated with beautiful European period pieces including Bohemian glass, heavy oak ‘Jacobethan’ furniture and Meissen china, the house offers visitors a rare glimpse into early (albeit privileged) colonial life in Sydney. Vaucluse House was built and occupied from 1827 to 1862 by William Charles Wentworth, his wife, Sarah, and their children. The son of a convict mother, Wentworth became a barrister and co-wrote the first NSW colonial constitution, but was outcast from high society because of his dem…
reviewed
-
U
Sydney Observatory
Built in the 1850s, Sydney’s copper-domed, Italianate observatory squats atop Observatory Hill, overlooking Millers Point and the harbour. Studded with huge Moreton Bay fig trees, the grassy hilltop buzzes with sweaty hill-climbing joggers, lunchtime CBD escapees and travellers taking time out from The Rocks below. The hill was the site of the colony’s first windmill (1796), which ground wheat until someone stole its canvas sails and the structure collapsed. Inside is a collection of vintage apparatus, including Australia’s oldest working telescope (1874). Also on offer are AV displays, an interactive Australian Astronomy exhibition of Aboriginal sky stories and modern …
reviewed
-
V
Australian National Maritime Museum
Beneath an Utzon-like roof (a low-rent Opera House?), the Maritime Museum sails through Australia’s inextricable relationship with the sea. Exhibitions range from Aboriginal canoes to surf culture and the Navy. You can almost taste the salt. Free tours happen half-hourly from 10am to 2.30pm; kids’ activities happen on Sundays between 11am and 3pm. Outside, the austere 100m-long Welcome Wall honours Sydney’s migrants, allowing families to inscribe names and register their history on the database. Entry to the permanent indoor collection is free; the cost of touring the vessels moored outside varies, with the ‘big ticket’ (adult/child/family $30/16/65) covering the subm…
reviewed
-
W
Balmain Historic Buildings
Balmain’s hibiscus-scented streets contain dozens of historically significant buildings, most of which are privately owned. The most notable is the graciously proportioned Hampton Villa, a Georgian marine villa (1847). NSW Premier Sir Henry Parkes, the ‘Father of Federation’, lived here from 1888 to 1892. Nearby is the squat, shingle-roofed Clontarf Cottage, an impressively restored house (1844) saved by protests in the late 1980s; and the semiderelict St Mary’s Hall, built around 1851 and now full of someone’s junk. Darling St has the Watch House, Sydney’s oldest surviving lockup (1854), Waterman’s Cottage, built in 1841, and Cathermore, Balmain’s first bak…
reviewed
-
X
Coogee Ocean Pools
If you’ve got kids, shark-paranoia, or surf isn’t your thing, Sydney’s blessed with a string of 40 man-made ocean pools up and down the coast, most of them free. At Coogee Beach’s northern end below Dolphin Point, Giles Baths is what’s known as a ‘bogey hole’ – a semiformal rock pool open to the surging surf. At the beach’s southern end, Ross Jones Memorial Pool has sand-castle-like concrete turrets. Up against the cliffs further south is McIvers Baths. Screened from passers-by, it’s been a popular women-only pool since 1876. Further south still, Wylies Baths is for serious lap swimmers. Closer to Maroubra, Mahon Pool is an idyllic rock pool where the …
reviewed
