Sydney and around

444 Pages·2017·4.85 MB·English

by  Rough Guides

Contents
How to use
Introduction to Sydney and around
Circular Quay
The Rocks
Central Business District (CBD)
Haymarket
The Domain
Darling Harbour and around
The inner east
The inner west
The Harbour
Ocean beaches
Botany Bay
Arrival and departure
Getting around
Information
Tours
Accommodation
Eating
Drinking and nightlife
Classical music, theatre, dance and comedy
Film
Art galleries and exhibitions
Sports and outdoor activities
Shopping
Directory
Around Sydney
Australia Basics
Maps
Small print
HOW TO USE THIS ROUGH
GUIDES SNAPSHOT
This Rough Guides Snapshot is one of a new generation of informative and
easy-to-use travel-guide eBooks that guarantees you make the most of your visit.
An essential tool for pre-trip planning, it also makes a great travel companion
when you’re on the road.
Introduction to Sydney and around is a good place to start, with an overview of
the city and surrounding area’s big attractions, plus a list of highlights. From the
table of contents, you can click straight to the main sections of the guide, which
includes features on all the major sights. You’ll find practical information on the
country as a whole, including details on flights, in Australia Basics. Shorter
contents lists appear at the start of every section in the guide to make chapter
navigation quick and easy. You can jump back to these by tapping the links that
sit with an arrow icon.
Detailed area maps can be found in the guide and in the dedicated map section,
which also includes a full country map, accessible from the table of contents.
Depending on your hardware, you can double-tap on the maps to see larger-scale
versions, or select different scales. There are also thumbnails below more
detailed maps - in these cases, you can opt to “zoom left/top” or “zoom
right/bottom” or view the full map. The screen-lock function on your device is
recommended when viewing enlarged maps. Make sure you have the latest
software updates, too.
Throughout the guide, we’ve flagged up our favourite places – a perfectly sited
hotel, an atmospheric café, a special restaurant – with . You can select your
own favourites and create a personalized itinerary by bookmarking the sights,
venues and activities that are of interest, giving you the quickest possible access
to everything you’ll need for your time away.

INTRODUCTION TO SYDNEY
AND AROUND
Highlights
Brief history
The Aussie city par excellence, Sydney stands head and shoulders above any
other in Australia. Taken together with its surrounds, it’s in many ways a
microcosm of the country as a whole – if only in its ability to defy your
expectations and prejudices as often as it confirms them. A thrusting, high-
rise business centre, a clutch of fascinating museums, vibrant art galleries, a
high-profile gay community and inner-city deprivation of unexpected
harshness are as much part of the scene as the beaches, the bodies and the
sparkling harbour. Its sophistication, cosmopolitan population and
exuberant nightlife are a long way from the Outback, and yet Sydney has
the highest Aboriginal population of any Australian city, and bushfires are
an annual threat.
It might seem surprising that Sydney is not Australia’s capital: the creation of
Canberra in 1927 – intended to stem the intense rivalry between Sydney and
Melbourne – has not affected the view of many Sydneysiders that their city
remains the country’s true capital, and certainly in many ways it feels like it. The
city has a tangible sense of history: the old stone walls and well-worn steps in
the backstreets around The Rocks are an evocative reminder that Sydney has
more than two hundred years of white history behind it.
You’ll need at least five days in this unique city to ensure you see not only its
glorious harbourside but also its wider treasures. Delving into the inner-city
areas of Paddington, Surry Hills and Glebe reveal more of the Sydney psyche.
And no trip to the city would be complete without at least one visit to the
eastern-suburb beaches – for a true taste of Sydney, take a long afternoon stroll
along the coastal path that stretches from Bondi to Coogee.
The surrounding areas – all the places covered in this chapter are within day-
trip distance – offer a taste of virtually everything you’ll find in the rest of the
country, with the exception of desert. There are magnificent national parks –
Ku-ring-gai Chase and Royal being the best known – and native wildlife within
an hour’s drive from the centre of town; while further north stretch endless
ocean beaches, great for surfers, and more enclosed waters for safer swimming
and sailing. Inland, the gorgeous Blue Mountains – UNESCO World Heritage-
listed – offer isolated bushwalking and scenic viewpoints. On the way are
historic colonial towns that were among the earliest foundations in the country –
Sydney itself was the very first. The commercial and industrial heart of the state
of New South Wales, especially the central coastal region, is bordered by
Wollongong in the south and much more enticing Newcastle in the north. Both
were synonymous with coal and steel, but the smokestack industries that
supported them for decades are now in severe decline. This is far from an
industrial wasteland, though: the heart of the coal-mining country is the Hunter
Valley, northwest of Newcastle, but to visit it you’d never guess, because this is
also Australia’s oldest, and arguably its best-known, wine-growing region,
where you can not only sample the fine wines but enjoy some of the best food in
the state.

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HUNTER VALLEY VINEYARDS
Highlights
1 Sydney Opera House Catch a show or relax with a drink at the Opera Bar.
2 Sydney Harbour Bridge Drive, walk, cycle or even climb the famous
“coathanger” for a giddy vision of the city.
3 Newtown Arty, quirky and with restaurants representing every flavour of
multicultural Sydney.
4 Sydney Harbour National Park Multiple pockets of astounding natural
beauty with great views of the harbour.
5 Bondi Beach Bold, brash Bondi is synonymous with Australian beach culture.
6 Cruise the harbour Sydney is at its best from the harbour; take it in cheaply
on the popular Manly Ferry.
7 Manly Beach A hub of watersports, with a holiday-village feel.
8 Mardi Gras The world’s biggest celebration of LGBT culture.
9 Hunter Valley wineries A famous wine-growing region with a plethora of
culinary and cultural activities to choose from.
10 Blue Mountains Take a weekend break in the World Heritage-listed Blue
Mountains.
< Back to Introduction to Sydney and around
Brief history
The city of Sydney was founded as a penal colony, amid brutality, deprivation
and despair. In January 1788, the First Fleet, carrying over a thousand people,
736 of them convicts, arrived at Botany Bay expecting the “fine meadows” that
Captain James Cook had described eight years earlier. In fact, what greeted them
was mostly swamp, scrub and sand dunes. An unsuccessful scouting expedition
prompted Commander Arthur Phillip to move the fleet a few kilometres north, to
the well-wooded Port Jackson, where a stream of fresh water was found. This
settlement was named Sydney Cove after Viscount Sydney, then Secretary of
State in Great Britain.
Hunger and conflict
In the first three years of settlement, the new colony nearly starved to death
several times; the land around Sydney Cove proved to be barren. When supply
ships did arrive, they inevitably came with hundreds more convicts to further
burden the colony. It was not until 1790, when land was successfully farmed
further west at Parramatta, that the hunger began to abate. Measure this
suffering, however, with that of the original occupants, the Eora Aborigines:
their land had been invaded, their people virtually wiped out by smallpox, and
now they were stricken by hunger as the settlers shot at their game. Under the
leadership of Pemulwuy, a skilled Aboriginal warrior, the Eora commenced a
guerrilla war against the colony for much of the 1790s. However, the numbers
and firepower of the settlers proved too great, and in 1802 Pemulwuy was
captured and killed, his severed head sent back to England. The Eora’s resistance
soon ended.