After 2 adrenaline filled days in Airlie Beach, we flew south to our next destination of our Australia trip–SYDNEY!
We had extended family in Sydney, so we were especially excited for this destination. Seeing family just feels so comforting when you’re traveling. 🙂
We did quite a bit during our week in Sydney, and here are our favorites!
- DARLING HARBOUR— I think we probably went to Darling Harbour 3-4 times during our short stay in Sydney! It was just such a lovely area, full of great eateries, an amazing playground for kids, a ferris wheel for a view of the harbour up high, and a fountain area for kids to run through on hot days.
2. BONDI BEACH— One of Australia’s most iconic beaches, and a must-go when you’re in Sydney. We lucked out on a beautiful day there, sunny, but with the slightest breeze. We strolled on the beach a bit, and then hit the famous Bondi Iceberg Pool. It’s a massive, Olympic size saltwater pool, with a smaller kiddie pool adjacent to it. The coolest part is standing by the pool and getting hit by the ocean waves!
After hanging out at Bondi Beach for most of the early afternoon, we did the scenic walk to Bronte Beach. I would highly recommend this trail as it really does give you breathtaking views the entire way!
3. SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE— Okay, so one can’t go to Sydney and NOT visit the Sydney Opera House to see one of the most distinguishable buildings in the world! Because I didn’t plan ahead of time, we weren’t able to see any of the performances that interested us, so we just did a self tour instead. To be honest, we were kind of underwhelmed with the opera house, but maybe it would’ve been a better experience had we opted for the “behind the scenes” guided tour, or to actually watch one of the performances there.
4. SYDNEY FISH MARKET–Our family LOVES seafood, so we couldn’t leave without visiting this fish market TWICE! 🙂 The seafood stalls there were amazing! It was fun just to look at all the varieties there, but ofcourse the best part was choosing what to fill our tummies with. We opted for fresh uni, fresh oyster, and grilled scallops with cheese and rice. YUM-O!!!!!!!!
5. MANLY BEACH–Since we love beaches, we decided to hit another beach while in Sydney. We took a short, but very scenic, ferry ride to the nearby Manly Beach. It was a pretty cold day, so we didn’t end up spending too much time on the actual beach, but got to enjoy some of the restaurants and shops nearby. In fact, we had the absolute BEST fish & chip while we were there, at the Manly Fish Market!
And that concludes our week in Sydney! We stayed at the Meriton Zetland, and public transportation wasn’t as efficient as we had hoped, so we ended up taking Uber to most places. Uber is pretty expensive there though so next time, we’d definitely rent a car instead, as the roads and the parking seemed pretty similar to the US.
