After several days in the desert wilderness of the Red Center, we jumped on a plane and in three hours landed in the largest city of Australia and Oceania and the capital of the Aussie state New South Wales. Welcome to Sydney!
We’re sure all of you know a thing or two about Sydney and its Opera House is as famous as Eiffel Tower in Paris or Statue of Liberty in New York. Anyway, we wanted to let you know that this city won our internal competition for the best city we’ve visited so far. We really hope to come back soon, potentially also for a longer time. We’ll see! :) But for now, come with us to explore its streets, towers and beaches.
- Explore this amazing city
- Explore some famous beaches
- How to arrive and get around
- Where did we stay
Explore this amazing city
Our city adventure started with a walk from our hostel to the Royal Botanic Gardens. It’s a real green oasis with beautiful flowers, plants and lots of birds situated almost in the city center, just overlooking the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Seeing all of those places and the surrounding view we felt like in the movie Finding Nemo. Do you remember? We couldn’t believe we were in Sydney! It was even better than on all those pictures, movies and stories.
Through the streets
After the pretty botanical garden and promenade leading to the Sydney Opera House we sat down for lunch and a beer at Circular Quay (and tried to protect our food from aggressive seagulls) and got lost in the city center afterwards.
There is a gorgeous St Mary’s Cathedral and Hyde Park, plenty of museums and galleries all around. Based on our great experience with Aussie’s central markets we also went to check out Paddy’s market (Adelaide is still our champion :).
One really good decision we’ve made on our third day in the city was to go for a free walking tour. We do take them sometimes when we feel it would be nice to learn more about that particular place from somebody actually living there. Sydney’s episode was cool and we can just recommend it. In addition to a brief rundown of city’s history and its interesting convict past we sad plenty of interesting buildings and places and learned for example:
- That the ibises with long beaks trying to score some food in the trash cans are called bin chickens by the locals. Such a cute name!
- There is a lane-way with lots of cages suspended several meters above ground called Forgotten Songs which plays songs of various birds that once inhabited the city.
- There was a Rum Hospital in Sydney – it was built by the convicts and financed by businessmen in exchange for a monopoly to a rum import to the colony. Grrreat pirate solution for project financing!
Visiting Sydney Tower Eye
We’ve already written about Mia’s obsession with towers and big picture views. In Sydney, this desire was fulfilled by visiting the highest tower of the city – Sydney Tower Eye. Actually, we went up twice since we wanted to have a good look at the city also during the night time. And there’s a good deal on multiple entrances, so we’d actually saved money! At the beginning of both our visits we got to see a short 4D video about the city (and could not get this song from our head afterwards :). We had big expectations – and the views were fantastic! Nothing like the several (hundreds) pictures we took, you should go there once in the city and see with your own eyes!
Checking The Rocks
The next day we decided to explore the neighborhood just below the Sydney Harbour Bridge called The Rocks. It’s Sydney’s oldest historical area, originally the site of the first European colony, when all the convicts came down under. Nowadays it’s a bustling part of the city full of live art, culture, cozy cafes, small shops, markets and all things hipster.
Daily menu – Coat of Arms pizza – with kangaroo and emu meat. We don’t know if such a combination would have a better reputation with Italian pizza creators than pizza Hawaii has, but it was quite tasty nevertheless :)
Crossing the Harbour Bridge
The Harbour Bridge is a massive dominant of Sydney’s Harbour visible from almost everywhere. And since it’s ginormous we assumed the views while crossing it would be great as well. And the views from the other side – so we went to check them too. What do you think?
It’s also possible to enter its pylon and learn something about its history and construction in addition to enjoying the spectacular views. And if you’re courageous enough and don’t suffer from vertigo, you can try to climb over it. Sounds quite crazy, right?
Vivid Sydney 2019
We were sooo happy that by chance we found ourselves in the city while Vivid Sydney 2019 took place. There were light shows and various art installations often accompanied by music and interesting stories born from a spark of artistic genius all over the city. It was super nice and super enjoyable and walking between these installations in various locations was our favorite evening activity.
Explore some famous beaches
In addition to all the great art, architecture and parks Sydney also offers plenty of beautiful golden sandy beaches full of (usually pretty good looking) surfers. It was a pity that (i) none of us is a good looking surfer and (ii) autumn temperatures and small storms had managed to discourage us from jumping into the ocean. However, we observed those surfers doing their surfing stuff, breathed in the fresh salty air and enjoyed nice walks with picture perfect coastal views.
Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk
One of the popular beach walks starts just several minutes by bus from the city center and connects Bondi Beach with its less famous sibling – Coogee Beach. It’s a 6km walking trail full of nice views, beaches and bays, beautiful pools, huge crashing waves everywhere you look and locals barbecuing, sportsing and enjoying life.
Some interesting facts about the walk:
- Apart from surfers, you can also admire street art and spend several minutes walking along the Bondi Beach Sea Wall.
- During the winter months, you may be lucky and spot some humpback whales making their annual migration along the coast.
- There is a cemetery Between Bronte Beach and Gordon’s Bay – the heritage listed Waverly Cemetery overlooking the ocean, where many prominent Australians rest in peace.
- The Gordon’s Bay is particularly popular with diving and snorkeling lovers since it has a unique 600m underwater nature trail!
- All the coffee and food lovers will surely find something appetizing at the end of the walk in the Coogee Pavilion with an ocean view.
Manly Beach
It’s just a short ferry ride from the Circular Quay to get to Manly – a laid back beach-side suburb of northern Sydney. We found plenty of nice small shops and cafes and even an open air handicraft market when strolling through Manly’s streets. And just several steps from the town we reached the gorgeous beach. Surfers and other sportsing sportspeople were sporting everywhere, even given the unpleasant weather we had on that lazy Sunday afternoon, have a look!
How to arrive and get around
After a 3h flight from Ayers Rock, we landed at Sydney’s airport serving a never ending list of domestic and worldwide destinations. However, you may also arrive by car, a long haul bus, a train from a different city in New South Wales, or an interstate one from Queensland, the Australian Capital Territory or Victoria. Or on a boat?
There are several options for getting to the city center, we opted for our beloved public transportation – firstly using the Airport Link, which was super fast and super convenient. Since we knew we wanted to use public transportation quite frequently in the coming days we’ve bought and topped-up our Opal cards at the ticket window at the airport. Just don’t forget to tap off when you leave the train, bus or whatever :)
Sydney has a great transportation network – you can explore the city and its suburbs by the metro line, numerous train connections, buses (connecting the city also with Bondi Beach and many other cool places), light trains and ferries (connecting the Circular Quay with Manly, for example). You can even go beyond and use the trains to visit some places outside of the city such as the Blue Mountains or the Hunter Valley region. This is our plan for the next visit!
Where did we stay
We stayed five nights in the hostel Original Backpackers. The location was conveniently close to the metro station Kings Cross and there were plenty of restaurants and cafes just at our doorstep. On the other hand, this part of the city is famous for its nightlife and houses also Sydney’s red light district. Well, this part we skipped. Nevertheless, we didn’t feel unsafe when returning “home” at night. The hostel itself was quite nice, we’ve had a small simple colorful room. There was a laundry machine, equipped kitchen and dining area with a bunch of friendly people (even a chef working in Sydney giving advice on how to prepare a kangaroo steak :)
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