Sydney & Northern Beaches
Finally in 2025 my mom and one of my sisters, brother in law, and niece came to visit in Australia! They arrived in Sydney, picked up their rental car, and met me at Milson’s Point on a gorgeous sunny day. We walked to the Bradfield Park and soaked in stunning views of the opera house and Sydney harbour bridge from Broughton Street Lookout. Then we climbed the steps and walked the length of the bridge over Sydney harbour to The Rocks. In The Rocks, we checked out Susannah Place Museum‘s preserved terrace houses from the 1840’s and Cadman’s Cottage, built in 1816, and one of the oldest surviving buildings in Australia. Afterwards, we ate lunch at the iconic Opera Bar at the Sydney Opera House. The food and drinks are decent but the views of the harbour are fantastic and it has a lively vibe that captures the energy of Sydney’s CBD (Central Business District).
The Royal Botanic Garden
Just next to the Opera House and another of the most iconic sights in Sydney is the Royal Bontanic Garden. It is Australia’s oldest bontanic garden, having been officially established back in 1816 and covering 30 hectares with over 27,000 plants.
Mum in the Royal Botanic Garden
My sister, Tanya, taking photos
Here is an obvious group of foreigners (me & my family) photographing the Australian white ibis in the Royal Botanic Garden. The ibis is a very interesting bird to foreigners but Australians disparagingly refer to them as bin chickens and even write funny songs about them. The most famous of these comedic viral songs is this one but I’ll warn you it’s extremely crass and not at all appropriate for kids or even respectable adults.
Australian white ibis (by Walking with Chuck)
There are an enormous variety of birds that frequent the botanic garden so it’s a wonderful place for ornithologists an photographers. As you can probably tell from the quality of some of the photos, the professional looking ones were taken by my sister, Tanya, who is a fantastic photographer and has a wonderful website called Walking with Chuck. She has kindly allowed me to use her photographs in my blog.
Rainbow Lorikeet (by Walking with Chuck)
White Faced Heron (by Walking with Chuck)
Kookaburra (by Walking with Chuck)
Sydney red gum (Angophora costata)
Manly – Snorkeling Cabbage Tree Bay
The next day, I woke up early and met my sister for a 5 mile run from Manly up to North Head. I showed her deadmans surf break as well as the old military bunkers from World War II, the war memorial walk, and the views of Sydney from the cliffs.
Later that morning, my sister, brother in law, and I went snorkeling in Cabbage Tree Bay which is arguably the best snorkeling spot near Sydney and located between Manly and Shelly Beach. We had a great little snorkel and saw quite a few Eastern Fiddler Rays as well as an Estuary Catfish, Black Bream, and a Water dragon. Here is a short video of our snorkel!
Upper Crust & Long Reef Headland
After snorkeling, I took them to Upper Crust for some of the best pies in the northern beaches. We bought our pies (my favorite is the mexican pie) and hiked up to the Long Reef Headland for some amazing views. By chance, we ran into some photographers which showed us a pair of osprey’s nesting nearby.
Eastern Osprey (photo by Walking with Chuck)
Eastern Osprey pair with nest materials (photo by Walking with Chuck)
Palm Beach
Next we headed up the coastline to the picturesque peninsula of Palm Beach which has a sandy beach both on the side of Pittwater leading to Broken Bay and on the Pacific Ocean side which makes for a lovely strip of land that terminates in a rocky headland and Barrenjoey Lighthouse. There is a steep rocky path that leads up the headland to an overlook and the lighthouse on the cliff.
Rocky path up to the lighthouse
View from the lookout
Barrenjoey Lighthouse
The Basin
As we were having lunch at The Joey restaurant and bar located on the Pittwater side of Palm Beach the waitress overhead my sister asking about where we might see some kangaroos nearby. She mentioned that we could see some swamp wallabies just across the bay at a campground called The Basin. My sister was ecstatic at the news! So we took a short ferry ride across Pittwater to The Basin campground which is located in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. The waitress was absolutely correct and there were so many swamp wallabies! We also saw a lace monitor, locally referred to by the more generic term goanna. I found the monitor absolutely intriguing as it could run surprisingly fast along the ground but more unlikely, it was an excellent climber and was completely at home on the side of a tree where it blended into the bark incredibly well. Lace monitors are actually also referred to as tree monitors and evolutionarily they date back over 2 million years ago to the Pleistocene era. Females like to lay their eggs in live termite nests and males often fight heavily for the females favor.
Swamp Wallaby
Lace Monitor or Goanna
Out of Time!
I realized in having my family here that it is simply impossible to see everything in Sydney in just a couple days but we had an fantastic time vising the Sydney CBD, the Opera House, the Rocks, the Royal Botanic Garden, and some beautiful spots in the Northern Beaches. For sure, they got a great taste of what Sydney and New South Wales has to offer! However, if I had a bit more time, I would take them to the Blue Mountains and Royal National Park and maybe do some of the iconic Sydney walks like Spit to Manly or Bondi to Coogee.
Awesome!!!!’