Full of dog walkers, kite flyers and stragglers from last night’s party, 40-hectare Sydney Park is a great place to chill out. From the bald hilltop you can see the city rising like a volcanic island from a sea of suburbia, while to the south there are views over the airport to Botany Bay. Much of the land has been reclaimed from swamps, clay pits and brickworks. Some land is being shaved off it though, for the locally controversial WestConnex motorway project.
©Monique Perrin/Lonely Planet
Sydney Park
Newtown & the Inner West
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
5.5 MILES
Definitively Sydney, Bondi is one of the world’s great beaches. It’s the closest ocean beach to the city centre (8km away), has consistently good (though…
4.21 MILES
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Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park
18.75 MILES
A spectacular mix of sandstone, Australian bushland and tranquil water vistas, this 14,928-hectare park forms Sydney’s northern boundary. It’s located 20…
7.34 MILES
Lovely Watsons Bay, east of the city centre and north of Bondi, was once a small fishing village, as evidenced by the heritage cottages that pepper the…
5.66 MILES
A 12-minute ferry ride from Circular Quay, this forested harbour hillside is full of kangaroos, koalas and similarly hirsute Australians, plus numerous…
4.07 MILES
Designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, this magnificent building is Australia's most famous landmark. Visually referencing a yacht's sails, it's a…
9.14 MILES
About 3km south of central Manly, spectacular North Head offers dramatic cliffs, lookouts, secluded beaches, pretty paths through the native scrub, and…
23.94 MILES
This central section of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park is a spectacular wilderness, with awe-inspiring vistas over Pittwater and Broken Bay, hidden beach…
Nearby Newtown & the Inner West attractions
1.11 MILES
Take a self-guided tour beyond the monstrous 1848 fig tree into this dark, eerily unkempt cemetery next to St Stephens Church. Famous Australians buried…
1.2 MILES
Built between 1880 and 1889, this intriguing group of huge Victorian-era workshops was part of the Eveleigh Railyards. The rail workers chugged out in…
1.52 MILES
Part of the University of Sydney, this gallery has two exhibition spaces that show challenging, often avant-garde exhibitions by contemporary artists…
1.66 MILES
Within the University of Sydney's quadrangle, this is a great under-the-radar attraction. Combining modern ideas with ancient artefacts, it's an…
1.68 MILES
The green gateway to the Inner West and the University of Sydney, Victoria Park is a 9-hectare grassy wedge revolving around pondlike Lake Northam and…
1.7 MILES
Australia’s oldest tertiary institution (1850) has around 50,000 students and boasts its own postcode. You don’t need a PhD to grab a free campus map and…
1.76 MILES
This new museum at the University of Sydney is scheduled to open in mid-2020. It will combine the three former university museums and greatly expand the…
1.87 MILES
In many ways Sydney's best contemporary-art gallery, White Rabbit is tucked away behind the Central Park development in Chippendale. It's the project of…