Also for a lazy Sunday afternoon you can’t beat a game of barefoot bowls (the Paddington Bowls Club is a fave), lawn bowls, cheap drinks and lots of laughs …

oh, and ‘Manly’ was named after the Aboriginals Captain Cook saw standing around there as they sailed in in some tall ships as a prelude to taking the place over.

There are coal seams in the north and south in Newcastle and Wollongong respectively, also both steel cities and working harbours, about 2 hours drive either north or south of Sydney. There are resort towns at the beaches all the way up and down the coast also, the weather gets better as you go further north though, it’s a bit wilder in the south. Byron Bay on the border of Queensland is a sort of expensive hippy mecca. So you can either drive for 10 hours north from Sydney to Brisbane, or south 10 hours on the coast road eventually to Melbourne, passing through the resort towns. Best split up over 2-3 days. You drive on the wrong side of the road also, like the UK, Japan, etc.

Coogee and Bondi beaches are also backpacker central, and Bondi hosted the beach volleyball in the 2000 Olympics. Lots of shops and cafes at these two as well.

A lot of these eastern suburbs beaches are also surfing beaches. Particularly Bondi, Bronte, and Maroubra beach further south. (Mind the ‘Bra Boys’ surf gangs at Maroubra though as per the movie. They’ll love you if you’re cool though.)

Clovelly Beach is a great snorkeling and swimming beach as it has an inlet protected by a reef, so lots of fish shelter there — away from sharks and the open sea. Peter Garrett, lead singer of Midnight Oil and now Member of Parliament has his electorate around there. Lots of ABC comedians etc live around Clovelly Beach for some reason also — e.g. HG Nelson — and there’s now quite a few millionaires in the area.

You can also do a Sydney Harbour Bridgewalk, i.e. actually walk over the coathanger and get the views of the harbour and shore directly, but it’s not cheap — over AUD$100 from memory.

In the opposite direction, due west, are the Blue Mountains, kind of akin to visiting the Grand Canyon, with massive dry creeks and cliffs carved out of sandstone. ‘Blue’ because of the eucalyptus cover and blue haze from the eucalyptus oil on a hot day. Huge resort area with a string of resort towns along the Great Western Highway once you hit the mountains. A lot of the accommodation is bungalows converted into ‘bed and breakfasts’ available for hire. There’s a cable car somewhere out there up the mountain also. Basically about an hour’s drive due west from Sydney, easy to find, there’s only one road.

There are also native animal sanctuaries here and there around the place so you can fraternise with marsupials.

The northern beaches of Sydney (north of the harbour) tend to be more elitist, up to Palm Beach and Avalon Beach. Also Manly Beach, on a peninsula, is very well known and popular, very close to the city — very easy and quick to take the ferry there from Circular Quay, very difficult to drive all the way round. Even taking a ferry trip to just about anywhere is a cool thing to do, leaving from Circular Quay — either going up the Parramatta River to the west, or round out past the heads and the northern beaches in the east. Also many reasonably expensive harbour cruises available with catered trips of 4-5 hours under the bridge etc. You could go from visiting the Opera House (pretty breathtaking up close) to jumping on a ferry right there — and the city train loop also has a station there.

You can even look at Sydney University campus on the edge of the CBD, with lots of Gothic Revival architecture deliberately in the style of Oxford, built only 150 or so years ago. UTS also has its campus right near there in the CBD, next to Chinatown and Broadway — which is the same road that will take you all the way to the Blue Mountains. Further up this road is the ‘Little Italy’ strip at Leichhardt.

There is also the 2000 Olympics site and residential area, still in operation for sports and entertainment events and residential accommodation on the harbour, about 30 minutes drive due west on the same highway.

A lot of this is best explored in Australian summer time, or at least not the middle of winter, which is the opposite time of year to the US. Spring is fall and fall is spring also.

P.S. I hosted Casey Serin for a couple of days when he came to Oz, so you can’t be that bad. ; )

Melbourne also has a lot of interesting attractions and great architecture of its own, and a really easy grid system of streets. Painless navigation. ‘Little Italy’ is in the inner northern suburbs on Lygon St. Lots of other interesting things to do and look at down in Victoria also. North to Queensland and it’s all hot, near tropical weather and beaches, like Florida.

hope to see u in australia :P
if ur ever in victoria give me a heads up ^^, would love to meet you man :D

btw.. melbourne ftw lol

Where is Bondi Beach ?
Kings Cross ?

Need to start appreciating things again, stop and smell the roses you know?

You’ve spelt Sydney wrong in the first paragraph ;)

I live in Sydney, and i Love it. There is always something to do or see.

Other things to do in Sydney are things such as visit Bondi beach, which has been on TV.

It was interesting hearing the list, and got a laugh on some of the pronunciations of Places.