Sydney, Australia
Highlights
Taronga Zoo
Darling Harbour Playground
Chinese Garden of Friendship
Powerhouse Museum
Chinatown
Manly
Why visit Sydney?
For a world-class city with beautiful beaches and iconic landmarks.
Getting there and around
We flew from Queenstown, Aotearoa to Sydney, Australia with Virgin Australia. The flight took 3 hours. Getting through baggage collection, immigration and biosecurity was very quick and easy.
From Sydney Airport we bought single trip train tickets (£13 per adult, £6.50 per child) and took the T8 train to Wynard which was a quick 8 stop / 15 minute ride from the airport. The hostel was a 15 minute walk from Wynard station. We walked and used light rail and ferries to get around.
Accommodation
We stayed at the Sydney Harbour YHA in a private family room with an en suite bathroom for 4 nights, giving us 3 full days in the city. Our room cost £125 per night which was good value compared to the cost of nearby hotels.
We paid £4 each per day for breakfast at the hostel. The breakfast was simple - cereals, toast, yogurt and we could have created it ourselves for less money, but the convenience made it worthwhile.
The wi-fi was consistently fast. The kitchen and communal areas were clean. There was a games room, a laundry (£4 to wash and dry) and a rooftop terrace with amazing views of the harbour.
The hostel was well located in the Rocks area about 10 minutes walk from Circular Quay (for trains and ferries) and 10 minutes from Bridge Street (for light rail).
The Rocks area sits in the shadow of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and is a historical area with winding alleyways and steep steps, that is now buzzing with galleries, bars, restaurants and markets.
Our star rating: 5
Our cost rating: 5
Taronga Zoo
We don’t normally visit zoos and prefer to leave animals to do their own thing in the wild. But Max saw a poster for the zoo and asked to go and see koalas, so of course we said yes!
Just a short walk from the Rocks (downhill on the way, uphill via lots of steep steps on the way back) is the Circular Quay harbour area where we saw the iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge.
We caught the ferry from Circular Quay to Taronga Zoo (£24 for 2 adults and 2 children return), admiring the city skyline views on the way. The ferry to Taronga Zoo took just 15 minutes. When we disembarked we bought tickets online (£75 for a family ticket) and walked up to the lower entrance.
It was a very hot 38 degrees when we went to the zoo. We would have needed a full day to see everything but because of the heat we just spent the morning there.
We did a long walk around the zoo and managed to see seals, penguins, sea lions, kangaroos, Tasmanian devils, camels, elephants, gorillas and capybara. We also saw lots and lots of beautiful birds in the blue mountain bush walk trail.
As previously mentioned, Max was very keen to see koalas and after seeing some in the trees from a distance, we paid £15 for him to have a guided encounter with a keeper, where we got closer (but not too close, and no touching) to a mother and baby koala and learnt all about them.
We learnt that koalas eat 10% of their body weight a day in eucalyptus leaves, and the zoo has its own eucalyptus plantation so it can provide enough leaf food for the koalas in its care!
Darling Harbour Playground
The day after the zoo we decided to explore the central business district (city centre) and took a walk through the Darling Quarter and Chinatown.
To beat the heat we set off early and took the light rail train from bridge street to town hall station. We tapped on and off the train using our contactless debit cards.
Our first stop was the Darling Harbour Playground. We got there at 9am when it was still cool and not busy at all. The kids had a great time on the play equipment but their favourite part was definitely the fountains and water play.
Chinese Garden of Friendship
After the playground we walked through Tumbalong Park to the Chinese Garden of Friendship (entry cost us £15 for a family ticket). The garden was designed and opened in the late 1980s.
This was a wonderfully tranquil and calm space away from the buzz (and construction noise) of the city. The planting was gorgeous and we loved seeing birds and lizards in the garden.
We followed paths that led intriguingly to different parts to the garden including the water pavilion and lake with koi carp; mountain walk with pagoda; dragon wall; and rock sculptures.
Powerhouse Museum
From the Chinese Garden we continued walking to the Powerhouse (museum of applied science, arts, innovation and design). The museum is housed in a converted electric tram power station which was originally constructed in 1902.
The museum was an eclectic mix of steam powered machines, transport, art, fashion, and engineering.
We saw the gigantic Whitbread engine which was invented by James Watt in 1785 and used to power machines in a London brewery, before later being donated and shipped to the museum in 1887 where it was restored.
There was also a stunning exhibition on queer design, with amazing pride costumes, and a beautiful fashion design collection by Carla Zampetti.
The kids pretended that they were at a fashion show and picked their favourite outfits, before going downstairs to learn about magnets, pulleys, generators, pumps, hoists, levers and gears.
Chinatown
After visiting the Powerhouse Museum we walked the short distance to Sydney’s Chinatown. We ate lunch at The Eight, a huge yum cha (tea and dim sum) restaurant on the top floor of a big shopping mall called Market City.
Our kids loved choosing food from the traditional trolley carts, and it brought back happy memories for us of having dim sum with family at New World in London, which we used to go to on Sundays before it closed down.
Manly
The northern suburb of Manly was really easy to get to from our hostel because we were just a short walk from the ferries at Circular Quay. The ferry took less than half an hour and cost about £20 for a round trip for the 4 of us.
When we arrived we walked down The Corso, a pedestrianised shopping street which led to Manly beach.
We walked south, following the bay around to the Fairy Bower Tidal Pool which was a great way of being able to swim in a safe sheltered spot.
We were going to continue round to Shelley Beach but decided to head back to the main beach where it wasn’t too crowded and we had spotted some umbrellas, gazebos and chairs to rent (£20 for a gazebo and 2 chairs for the day).
The kids are well versed at playing on beaches now and had fun paddling, jumping waves and burying each other in the sand.
We finished our day, and our time in Sydney, with ice creams from Anita’s Gelato, a global chain of parlours which we first encountered in New York. The Manly branch was better!
We had a lovely day in Manly. The beach was one of the prettiest we’ve visited, and hopefully a taste of more awesome Australian beaches to come on this trip!
Final thoughts
Sydney is a world class city, full of iconic sights and beautiful beaches. We spent 3 days in the city and set off early each day to beat the heat, returning to the hostel by mid afternoon. We managed to cover a lot of ground in that time.
We really enjoyed our walk through darling quarter and chinatown, and the zoo was great fun. Manly was a lovely neighbourhood and the beach was gorgeous.
If we’d had more time in the city we would have liked to have visited some more of the city’s neighbourhoods including Newtown, Darlinghurst, Paddington and Surry Hills.
