Sydney.

We’ve just spent Faye’s Easter holidays (2.5 weeks) here in Sydney. Australia has never been high on the list of travel destinations to visit – I’m not 100% sure why, I guess it just seemed so far!

Our good friends James and Amelia have recently had a baby and whilst on maternity leave decided to bring the baby out to Australia to stay with family for a few months. When they booked their trip they asked if we’d like to come out and visit them. Of course I don’t need to be asked twice for a holiday!

I booked our flights through STA Travel with China Southern Air from Heathrow to Sydney with a 3 hour touch down in Guangzhou in China for both journeys. These were the most reasonably priced flights over the UK school Easter holiday break with Faye only missing one day of school.

Accomodation has been a mixture. We started out in an Airbnb on Bondi Road near the beach. This was a self catering apartment with a 10 minute walk to the beach. Perfect for what we needed to get over the jet lag! Although it was a great location for the beach it was a little tricky to get elsewhere. It’d probably be better to stay at the other end of Bondi Road closer to Bondi Junction which is one of the main transport hubs for the city. We’ve also stayed in two other areas which our friends sorted out for us, staying with friends and family. The second place was near Kings Cross Station and the iconic Coca Cola sign which was a fab location for the city. We could walk down to Circular Quay within 30 minutes. Sydney is quite hilly though so the uphill walk home and the end of a long day could be a bit of a struggle and resulted in us getting an Uber home! Lastly we stayed on Ocean Street near Centennial Park. This was in between the two areas we’d previously stayed in. Buses to and from some of the Harbour Beaches (Neilson’s Park, Watson’s Bay etc) were really easy and it was also only a few minutes walk to the nearest train station – Edgecliff. To use all the buses/trains/ferries you need to pick up an Opal card and top it up, just like an Oyster Card in London. We also used Uber a fair bit whilst in Sydney, which was really reliable and averagely priced.

Even though Sydney’s pretty small it feels like we’ve done a bit of a twin city break, first part on the beach, second part in the city and we’ve had plenty of time to see all the sights, catch up with friends and spend time relaxing at the beach. So I’d say two and a half weeks for seeing Sydney is plenty of time.

Here’s what we covered;

Bondi –
– Faye had two surf lessons here with Let’s Go Surfing at the North end of Bondi. She says hands down one of the best things she’s done!
– Icebergs Pool is the iconic sea pool at Bondi. We had a fab afternoon here soaking up the sun and Faye could swim happily knowing there wasn’t any sharks!
– Bondi to Bronte costal walk. A must do for anyone, go at your own pace stopping off at all the beaches you go past. You can carry on down to Coogee as well.
– Dinner at the Bucket List on Bondi Beach has a great view!

City –
– We we’re fortunate enough to be invited on our friends boat from Darling Point for a sunset cruise to see the Harbour Bridge and Opera House
– Woolloomooloo Wharf is great for a nosey. Lots of super prices restaurants and Naval boats there. Possibly Russell Crowe owns a penthouse apartment there! Harry’s Cafe De Wheels is at the Wharf which is a bit of an iconic spot. It’s nothing glamorous, just a mobile food unit that has been there for years which sells pies! We stopped by for lunch and had the seafood pie. It’s was so tasty and lots of people were there!
– The Art Gallery of NSW is great for a wander. It’s free to enter and has loads of art work across different floors as well as a cafe in the middle which has a brilliant view.
– Mrs Macquarie’s Point is a big tourist spot. The chair where Mrs Macquarie used to sit and look back towards what is now Circular Quay area. You get great views of the Bridge and Opera House here.
– Royal Botanical Gardens. Again another free activity to walk the beautiful grounds and open space only moments from the City. There’s lots of different areas to explore and a cafe. Theres a cute little train called the Choochoo Express that goes around the gardens and gives you a 25 minute tour of the grounds. I’d highly recommend this for $15 for two!
– Opera House Bar is at the foot of the opera house outside which has a brilliant vibe. We happened to bump into friends when we were going past this area and stayed with them for drinks and dinner as the sun set.
– Opera House. We wandered around the inside. I didn’t appreciate how big the place was. We would of liked to of watched a show but nothing on was particularly suitable. I should really have looked into this before coming out to Aus.
– Harbour Bridge is obviously iconic. You can pay around $200 for a 20 minute climb over the top. We didn’t do this but I stead walked across it using the sidewalk which lot of people do.
– The Rocks is the oldest part of Sydney and is full of bars, restaurants, galleries and museums. We made a pitstop at Pancakes on the Rocks which is a well known food place open 24/7 as well as wandering around the Rocks Market which is full of local suppliers.
– Darling Harbour was also a favourite spot for us. We initially went there for the aquarium which was average. But afterwards wandered around the Harbour and had multiple lovely dinners. There’s also a fab kids playground and water fountain that Faye enjoyed. Every Saturday evening at Darling Harbour there is a firework display which gets major crowds. Also the Lindt cafe is here – great for a late night dessert!!
– Taronga Zoo is a 12 minute ferry journey from the hub at Circular Quay. The Zoo is really lovely and has a huge array of animals. The backdrop of the zoo is Harbour bridge and the city so is a great place for photos!
– Also from Circular Quay you can catch the ferry over to Manly, about a 25 minute journey. Manly is the start of the Northern beaches. From Manly we walked along the coast to Shelly beach as you can snorkel right off the beach and see lots of fish. There’s also the Boat House restaurant here which did fab lunches.

Beaches;
We decided to spend the last part of our trip over the long Easter bank holiday exploring some of the harbour beaches which were by far my favourite. There are just so many to choose from! We visited Neilsens Park, Murray Rose Bay, Watson’s Bay and Camp Cove. They are all reasonably small beaches with shark nets and each one has a small place for lunch. These were super accessible via bus for us. On Easter Sunday we visited Watson’s Bay and they were hosting an aqua egg hunt which was great fun for the kids, diving into the sea to collect things in exchange for Easter eggs!

Outside the city;
We did a couple of day trips outside the city. The first was up to Palm Beach which is gorgeous and also where Home and Away is filmed so I was told and would you believe that when we turned up there they all were getting ready for their next scene!
Our other trip out of the city was to the Blue Mountains. There’s loads of companies that will pick you up in Sydney and take you on this 1.5 hour drive out to the Blue Mountains. We stopped at a wildlife park on the way to feed some Kangaroo’s and on the way home got a boat back into Circular Quay which was fun. At the Blue Mountains we saw the Three Sisters and visited scenic world which is a collection of cable cars that take you across the mountains.

In general the Australian’s were super friendly! Most I spoke to all seemed to of lived in London for at least 2 years when in their 20’s! I felt Sydney was quite like London, just on a smaller scale and with better weather! The Easter period seemed to be a great time to visit. The autumnal weather was near on perfect most of the time averaging around 23 degrees and bright blue skies for the most part. The city seemed relatively quiet I thought. Obviously the main tourist parts were busy, but that’s a given! Some days at the beach were dead and there was only a handful of people on them! Perhaps not hot enough for the Aussies to hit the beach?! We would be out in shorts and t-shirts everyday and just take a jumper for the evening but you’d see the locals in jeans and coats! They must not cope well when they come to the UK!

Things we discovered;
– There’s more than double the amount of Kangaroos in Australia than people.
– Kangaroo translates as ‘I don’t know’ in Aboriginal.
– Female Kangaroos can determine the sex of their babies in their mind before they are born
– 80% of Kangaroos are female – this is because males fight to the death!
– Kangaroo is the healthiest meat you can eat. We tried it, it was really nice!
– Its illegal to touch a Koala in the State of NSW
– Bondi Beach is actually really dangerous! The rips in the ocean are pretty fierce and it’s not great to swim in. Swim between the flags people!
(Whilst we’ve been out here Faye has discovered Bondi Rescue on the TV. A reality TV show that follows the Lifeguards are Bondi. She loves it! And although it’s a reality show it’s pretty eye opening as to all the different things that can go wrong on the beach!!)

Sydney has been awesome and we most definitely didn’t want to leave!