Oct 15

Monday Memories: Coasting Over Sydney

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South Coast of Sydney, Australia.

When most people think of Sydney they probably imagine the photographic landmarks of this bright, sun-friendly city. Sure these kinds of icons – and yes, I’m loathe to use that word – exist in other great capital cities around the world, but in Sydney the landmarks don’t exist without context.

Sydney’s harbour is incredibly beautiful. It frames the striking shapes, those sensual curves, of the Sydney Opera House and The Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is dramatic, but it becomes even more dramatic as you pass over the Heads – the natural southern and northern cliffs that form the entrance to the harbour – whether you’re heading north or south.

Covered in natural vegetation, the verdant headlands give way to sprawling suburbs with big backyards and swimming pools, secluded coves, and long stretches of sandy beaches, that become less populated the further away from the city centre one gets until there’s nothing but native bushland – and more secret coves and stretches of golden sand.

Flying over these familiar Australian landscapes, I always think of the places where I used to surf, and where Lara and I would drive on the weekends when we used to live in Sydney.

Sydney is one of the most amazing cities to fly into or out of – especially if you get to cruise over the harbour or along the coast as we did on this particular morning. It’s so breathtakingly beautiful, it chokes you up.  It usually makes Lara cry.

It makes me think I should be throwing a board in the back of the car and we should be going for a drive up or down the coast, and staying in a beach shack at one of those small towns somewhere on the eastern seaboard of New South Wales – one of those laidback holiday spots that Manly reminded us of…

Next time.

Details: Apple iPhone 4, @ F2.8 @ 1/1117th of s second @ ISO80.

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Oct 14

Escape to Manly, a Seaside Holiday Town in the City of Sydney

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Surfers at Manly Beach, Sydney.
Surf school at Manly Beach, Sydney.
Kids at Manly Beach, Sydney.
Surfing at Manly Beach, Sydney.
Skateboarding at Manly Beach, Sydney.
Manly Cove, Manly, Sydney.
View from Manly Pavilion, Manly, Sydney.
Manly Cove, Sydney.
Lifeguard, Manly Beach, Sydney.
Afternoon walk, Manly Beach, Sydney.
Hugo's at Manly, Sydney.
Fish and chips at Manly Beach, Sydney.
Q Station, Manly, Sydney.
Old pub poster and a local resident, Manly, Sydney.
Hemingway's bar, Manly Beach, Sydney.
Hemingway's bar, Manly Beach, Sydney.

Most visitors to Sydney make a beeline for Bondi Beach, including every backpacker who arrives in the city. There’s no denying that Bondi boasts a beautiful stretch of sand and the Bondi to Bronte coastal walk is one of the world’s most stunning. But Manly has much more charm and a laidback local vibe that’s infinitely more appealing than Bondi’s backpacker scene.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always had a soft spot for Bondi. It was a favourite lunch destination with friends for many years – although the food was never the draw, it was the opportunity to sit in a restaurant and sip white wine while gazing out at those spectacular sea views.

Over the years, though, in its eagerness to appeal to budget travellers there to booze and families who seemed to drop in on weekends to feed their kids fast food, Bondi changed, and sadly seemed to lose some of its identity.

Manly, on the other hand, while it still pulls tourists to its squeaky white sand and pine tree-lined promenade, and also has its fair share of fast food franchises, souvenir shops and mediocre eateries, has an authenticity about it, more of a community spirit, and has a kind of quirkiness reflected in its hippy backstreet cafés and idiosyncratic bars like Hemingway’s.

While it has its hipster spots, like kitschy Manly Wine bar, beachside café-deli The Pantry and temple to sweetness Adriano Zumbo’s Patisserie, as a destination Manly is not quite cool. In fact, its main pedestrian shopping area is what Australians like to call ‘daggy’ and could be in any old suburb. But that doesn’t really matter. In fact, that lack of pretension is partly Manly’s appeal.

But there’s something else that I love about the place even more than that. Manly may only be 30 minutes by ferry from Sydney’s city centre but it has a holiday town atmosphere that makes it feel like it’s three hundred kilometres away.

Manly reminds me of the small seaside communities on the east coast of New South Wales that my family used to take us to for the summer school holidays. They seemed to consist of little more than a main street, a caravan park, and a wharf with a fishing co-op where we’d buy kilos of cooked prawns. They probably don’t even exist anymore.

But there’s something about Manly that reminds me of those places. The barefoot locals, grandmotherly types with purple perms pushing shopping trolleys, kids with ice-cream smeared across their cheeks, and surfers with boards under their arms jogging across the burning bitumen road to the scorching sand.

In Manly, sunbathing, swimming, surfing, and perhaps a spot of fishing are the order of the day for locals and holidaymakers, punctuated of course by hamburgers or fish and chips at picnic tables by the beach, or counter meals and cold beers at a corner pub. Visitors will add surfing lessons, a bike ride, and – if travelling with kids – an aquarium visit to their to-do list.

Come late afternoon, it’s time for an amble under the pine-trees along the breezy seaside promenade with the dog-walkers and skate-boarders. Or a lazy stroll around the headland to Fairy Bower and Shelley Beach – a popular path that gets busy with locals pushing babies in buggies, jogging, power-walking, and, later, spreading out blankets to set up sunset picnics with friends.

For dinner, Manly’s residents and visitors will line up outside the most popular fish and chip joints, Thai restaurants, or the ever-popular pizza at buzzy Hugo’s on the harbourside at Manly Wharf. We would have added dining on creative Aussie cuisine at the light-filled Manly Pavilion as an option, but sadly it recently closed.

Dinner might be followed by more cold beers and perhaps a game of pool or darts at a local pub like the Hotel Steyne or a fancy cocktail in a tea cup at cosy Hemingway’s, with its bar lined with bookshelves and views of the beach.

Whatever you do, the night shouldn’t be allowed to end before you cross the road one more time to listen to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore so you can let that memory lull you to sleep. Just as it did on those childhood holidays.

Getting there 
Take the Manly Ferry (30 minutes) from Circular Quay. It’s a must-do experience in its own right. Timetables and fares here: www.sydneyferries.info At the time of research, adult single tickets cost $7 and returns double that.

Where to Stay
We checked into a stylish and very comfortable room for a couple of nights at Q Station, in the quaint, historic Quarantine Station. Set amongst native bushland on the headland above Manly, it would have been peaceful if it hadn’t have been wonderfully noisy with birdlife. The accommodation is in the original old weatherboard and brick buildings that ooze history – make sure you save some time to have a snoop around the buildings and stroll the grounds.

The buildings boast shady verandas overlooking the harbour where you can inhale the eucalyptus-scented air and sip a glass of something in the evening. A delicious breakfast is included but no matter how tempting it is to sit outside in the sunshine, don’t unless you want to lose your bacon to the laughing kookaburras. There’s a complimentary shuttle bus down to Manly Corso and you can easily find a taxi to take you back up if you timed things badly or miss the last bus.

www.qstation.com.au

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Oct 13

Whale Watching in Sydney

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Sydney whale watching cruise.
Sydney whale watching cruise.
Sydney whale watching cruise.
Sydney whale watching cruise.
Sydney whale watching cruise.
Sydney whale watching cruise.
Sydney whale watching cruise.
Sydney whale watching cruise.
Sydney whale watching cruise.

We had brilliant success spotting the Big Five on Kenya safaris, we’ve seen abundant wildlife in Australia’s outback when others claimed to have seen little at all, and we never have a problem attracting primates wherever we go, from Costa Rica to Borneo, but we have the worst luck when it comes to marine life. Regardless, I was determined to go whale watching in Sydney and was secretly hoping to break our sea life-spotting curse.

It’s All About Expectations
We saw nowhere near the numbers of dolphins usually seen on a dhow cruise through the dramatic ‘fjords’ of Oman’s Musandam Peninsula – so few the tour operator was so disappointed he sent us out again the next day with his crew, instructing them to ensure we spotted dolphins. We didn’t have much more luck (in fact it had been better the day before) though it was great to get out on the old dhow again and savour the mountain vistas.

We didn’t fare much better researching a guidebook in Australia a few years ago, when we seemed to be following the humpback and southern right whales’ journey along the Australian coastline on their annual migratory paths. Despite almost every town en route offering whale watching tours, we continually kept missing them – the whales had already moved on by the time we turned up.

In northwest Western Australia at Monkey Mia, an area renowned for its rich sea life, local operators take tourists out on catamarans to see dolphins, dugongs, stingrays, loggerhead and green turtles, sea snakes, and whales. We saw some dugong, along with a few turtles, rays and dolphins, but not in the abundance we’d imagined that you see on National Geographic Channel. Though once again it was lovely to be out on a boat and taste the salty sea air.

I think that was the point when I adjusted my way of thinking and reigned in my expectations. With these sorts of tours, like most trips where nature (uncontrollable) and animals (unpredictable) are the focus, it’s all about expectations. To avoid disappointment, I decided, it’s better to have none – or at the very least, set my sights low.

Serendipitous Timing
During our recent stay in Sydney, we did some pet sitting for friends at their Paddington terrace house while they flitted off to Europe for five weeks. (And no, they aren’t travel writers; hence the word flitted.) One morning, the Wentworth Courier, a free local newspaper, arrived on our doorstep with an extraordinary image on the cover of a humpback whale breaching near the cliffs of South Head, the southern side of the entrance to Sydney Harbour.

Humpback whales are renowned for spectacular behaviour and breaching is when these monumental whales leap out of the water, and – like some lithe gymnast or diver a fraction of their size – turn and twist and roll in the air, their massive pectoral fins stretched out like wings, before crashing and splashing back into the sea. (Click here to see that amazing shot to see what I mean.)

Somewhat serendipitously, we happened to be in town during whale watching season, which runs from June to November along the New South Wales coast, and right at the peak time in July when the whales stop in Sydney for a frolick in the waters (who can blame them?) before continuing their journey north to Queensland’s warmer sub-tropical waters. Between September and November they pass by again on their way back south to the Antarctic waters.

This year, it was estimated that there’d be a record number of some 15,000 humpback whales passing by – the figure has been increasing by around 8% every year – and around 100 mature southern right whales, which are on the endangered species list. Although as low as the figures are, it’s worth remembering humpback whales were close to extinction and the southern right whales had been hunted out in the 1840s and numbered as low as 10 a few years ago.

The Importance of Being Patient
On the morning the whale which had made the front cover breached, she did it not once, but ten times. The images were so incredible that I found myself a little envious not just of the opportunity to see a whale do that, but the chance to capture it in an image. Although I didn’t obsess about that aspect too much – I know from working alongside Terence how difficult wildlife photography is, how much time is needed and how patient you must be.

It turned out the photographer of that magical shot, Mark Seabury, a former fisherman and Bondi local, had been trying to take the picture that appeared on the paper for the past five years. We didn’t have that long. I decided I would be ecstatic if I just got a glimpse of a breach.

In the weeks following, I monitored the papers for more stories of the whales’ travels. Plenty of whales were being spotted off Sydney, in and around the heads, and even within the harbour. Ten had been spotted on one day alone. Some experts were saying it was the best year yet for whale watching. And not just ordinary whale spotting, these whales were doing wonderful things.

A southern right whale mother and newborn calf were reportedly being lulled by opera when they were seen frolicking right in front of the Sydney Opera House. The same whales were photographed five days later doing a bit of sightseeing on the Hawkesbury River.

If we were going to see some whales, surely now was the time – peak whale-watching season in the city where they seemed to enjoy playing at being tourists? We booked a morning tour with Captain Cook Cruises through Viator.

A Little Secret…
Now, there’s something I haven’t told you about my animal spotting abilities. I might not have had much success as far as marine spotting went, but I’ve demonstrated an uncanny knack to be the first in a group to catch sight of land animals and often spy them in the most challenging and uncommon situations.

Some situations have been so unusual I’ve surprised myself as much as the guides – from seeing koalas, animals that do a considerable amount of sleeping and camouflage themselves exceedingly well, hurriedly bound up a tree trunk or leap from the ground onto a tree, to noticing the elusive and threatened Nubian Ibex in Jordan’s Dana Reserve, precariously perched on a narrow rocky ledge the same shade as his pretty tan-coloured coat.

So when the Captain Cook Cruises guide doing the commentary announced after departing Circular Quay that there’d be a prize for the first person who spotted a whale (and in typical Australian-style, it was a free drink), I somehow knew it was my lucky day and it was going to be me.

Whale Spotting, Spy-Hopping and Lob-Tailing
Not twenty minutes later, as our vessel cruised by the cliffs beneath the old Quarantine Station, with one of the crew serendipitously by my side, not even certain of what I was looking for, I instinctively felt that a swirling movement I spotted on the water’s surface must be a whale.

At the exact moment the surface of the water appeared to part and the blow of vapour began to shoot into the air I excitedly shouted “whale!!!” and pointed in the direction of the action just as the whale ever so slightly began to reveal her glossy slate-grey head in a stealth-like movement known as ‘spy-hopping’.

The whale was a humpback, and there were two – a mother with her calf – and so the boat waited there for a while, manoeuvring slightly so passengers could see, while we all patiently watched, everyone photographing every single movement, however insignificant.

As the pair slowly swam beneath the cliffs, every now and again they sent a small spray of water into the air, like a single puff of steam or smoke rather than the dramatic jet I had imagined. Then, ever so slightly, their glistening heads would break the surface, and they’d have a look around before dipping below again.

We saw a little bit of ‘lob-tailing’, when the whale dives head down into the water and slaps its tail against the surface, but we saw nothing nearly as dramatic as a breach. We spent some time following the pair, taking care not to get too close and risk a tremendous fine, before the captain decided it was time to leave them alone and we headed out to sea in search of some action.

Treasuring Small Moments
It wasn’t long before we spotted another pair, and we followed the same routine, this time capturing a bit more lob-tailing action, before shifting our location once more and heading further out and finally spotting the more solitary and rare southern right whale. That was a sight to treasure, as subtle as her movements were. Imagine if those monumental mammals are no more?

I won’t provide more detail than that, because the rest of the trip was really just more of the same. Some dramatic tension was added after the guide explained how to calculate how long the whale is beneath the surface to try to predict when she might rise again. But when she did, while I experienced a little thrill at seeing the colossal animal swimming so close to us, I have to admit it wasn’t nearly as exhilarating as I imagined.

Yet it was good to be out on a boat on such a beautiful day and it was great to get outside the entrance the entrance to one of the world’s most gorgeous harbours. I wasn’t disappointed about not seeing spectacular whale acrobatics or even whales being lulled by opera. On the contrary, I felt privileged to have seen what I did, I was chuffed I was the first to spot the whale, and liked the idea that perhaps I’d broken the curse.

As I sipped a glass of the sparkling wine I’d won on our way back to the Quay, I contemplated the trip. I could understand how people like Mark Seabury could take up photography and wait every day of the whale watching season for the chance to see something as fantastic as a breach and capture it for the world to see. While I don’t have the patience to make it my life’s work, I would have very happily gone out whale watching again.

IMPORTANT DETAILS & TIPS

  • The first day of winter marks the official start of whale watching season in NSW, coinciding with National Whale Day on 1st June. Some whales have been seen in May and a few whales were spotted as early as March in 2012. In Sydney, Bondi Whale Festival will be held 24 June, 2013.
  • Between June to November, whale watching boats leave for tours from Circular Quay and Darling Harbour. We booked our tour with Captain Cook Cruises on the Viator site.
  • Late afternoon and early morning are best for whale watching. Take binoculars as well as long lenses.
  • You may also spot whales from the Bondi to Bronte coastal walk.
  • You’ll find fantastic info on humpback whales here and southern right whales here on the Environment department website, which shows you how to discern the humpbacks from southern right whales, how they move, the sounds they make, and migratory routes they take.
  • There are some 10 different types of other whales you might spot, but they’re rare and aren’t in the same numbers; there’s a list here.
  • There’s more great info on Wild About Whales which also has a fun but infrequently updated blog.
  • The Destination NSW www.sydney.com site also has info on whale watching, including links to whale watching tour operators.
  • If you’re travelling to other parts of the country, check out Australian Geographic’s Top 10 Whale Watching Spots in Australia.

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Oct 11

Price Check: a Sydney Shopping List

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Vegemite. An Australian icon that's considered to be an acquired taste.

After posting our guide to experiencing Sydney on a Budget and our apartment reviews, it seemed like a good time to do our Price Check: a Sydney Shopping List for you. Despite spending a great deal of time in Australia over the last 12 months, we still had trouble getting used to how expensive the country had become.

Grocery prices appeared to have increased by about 30% since our last lengthy stay in the country and buying a coffee in a decent coffee shop seemed to have nearly doubled. Going out to bars and restaurants, we were seeing cocktails for $18 and a $60 bottle of wine being called “affordable” by restaurant reviewers.

While most Australians we spent time with were unfazed by the high cost of living (as salaries appear to have risen by just as much), the effect on the tourism market – particularly at the mid- and lower ends of the market – has been devastating.

While Sydney tends to make it into the top 10 of many of those world’s most expensive cities lists (and other Australian cities follow fairly closely behind), we found both Perth and Melbourne (where we also spent significant periods of time) easily as expensive. However, as we spent the last couple of months in Sydney, that’s where we’ve done our Price Check for Australia, but these prices could really apply to any capital city.

One thing to note is that poor growing conditions at the time of writing is why the tomatoes are very expensive. You can get cheaper tomatoes at markets, such as Paddy’s Market in Chinatown, and further markets away from the city centre which many people told us made Paddy’s look expensive. It all depends where you live. We found the inner-city Sydney neighbourhood of Paddington where we house-sat for friends (not surprisingly) incredibly expensive and did all our shopping in Chinatown.

While the price of tomatoes might skew this list a tad, due to the colossal size of Australia and its climatic extremes – from frequent floods to fierce heatwaves – there is always going to be some crop that has been impacted somewhere by something, whether it’s a storm or drought. When we arrived in Melbourne last year, bananas were up to $20 a kilo due to floods in Queensland!

But, of course, this all makes a great case for living like locals when you visit Australia. Rent an apartment in one place for a while, settle in, shop the local markets, and cook at least one meal a day at home, and you’ll save a bundle. We have more tips in these posts on doing Sydney and Melbourne on a budget.

To see how Sydney compares to the almost 30 other destinations in the world we’ve covered so far for our Price Check series, click here or on Shopping List under Categories in the right sidebar.

 

1.5 litre water AUD$2.70 US$2.82 €2.18
1 litre milk AUD$1.50 US$1.57 €1.21
Bottle of drinkable local wine AUD$12.00 US$12.55 €9.67
750ml Victoria Bitter beer AUD$5.85 US$6.12 €4.71
100g Nescafe AUD$5.44 US$5.69 €4.38
250g fair trade coffee beans AUD$9.00 US$9.42 €7.25
Lipton’s tea 50 bags AUD$2.86 US$2.99 €2.30
1 kg sugar AUD$2.00 US$2.09 €1.61
Jar of pure honey (250grams) AUD$3.46 US$3.62 €2.79
1 loaf of wholegrain bread AUD$3.29 US$3.44 €2.65
250g quality butter AUD$2.60 US$2.72 €2.10
200g cheese (quality cheddar) AUD$6.00 US$6.28 €4.83
500ml ev olive oil AUD$7.00 US$7.32 €5.64
1 dozen organic eggs AUD$6.00 US$6.28 €4.83
1 kilo tomatoes AUD$9.00 US$9.42 €7.25
1 kilo brown onions AUD$1.78 US$1.86 €1.43
1 kilo red delicious apples AUD$3.40 US$3.56 €2.74
250g pistachios AUD$6.90 US$7.22 €5.56
220g gm jar of Vegemite AUD$4.17 US$4.36 €3.36
Total: AUD$94.95 US$99.33 €76.49

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Oct 10

Where to Stay in Sydney – Rooms With A View

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Sydney Harbour views of the Opera House at the Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney.

There are some cities you can visit where it doesn’t matter what’s outside your hotel window, where you’re going to decide where to stay based on factors other than a view, such as location, level of comfort, size, price, and so on. But where to stay in Sydney, a destination with a stupendous harbour, sublime beaches and a stunning skyline, does matter. This is one city where outlook matters.

Sydney is a city where you want to set aside time each day to simply sit and stare out the window or gaze out from your balcony at the breathtaking vistas – preferably with a glass of Aussie wine in hand. We were lucky to get to do just that on terraces and windows at a wide range of accommodation, from the apartments we reviewed in this post to hotels like the Four Seasons below.

This guide might come as a surprise to regular readers used to seeing our more detailed Home Away From Home reviews of holiday rentals. But as we discovered during our recent time down under, Australia is an expensive destination and not everyone can afford to settle into an apartment for a while in the way they might in other places. (See this post for tips to experiencing Sydney on a Budget.)

As we’ve also posted before, from places as diverse as Costa Rica and Cape Town, slow travel isn’t necessarily about how long you spend in a place, but what you do with your time there. Sydney is a beautiful city. Who doesn’t want to schedule time to sit and drink in those spectacular vistas?

Four Seasons Hotel Sydney
Ask for a room overlooking Circular Quay and the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge if you want that jaw-dropping view, above, taken from our room at the Four Seasons Hotel Sydney where we spent a couple of heavenly days. We were busy, running out to photo shoots and interviews with some of Sydney’s finest chefs at restaurants nearby, but we made sure that we spent some of our time each evening sipping something in front of our floor to ceiling windows. One evening, Terence set the camera up on a tripod and shot a time-lapse from that same angle above that was so stunning it ended up as the opening double-page spread for one of our magazine stories on Sydney. As you’d expect from a Four Seasons, the rooms are plush and spacious, and superbly equipped, with everything from a coffee machine to a quality hairdryer; there’s a sumptuous lobby, spa and swimming pool; staff are fantastic; and the George Street location must be one of the city’s best for sightseeing. Our only quibble was that the executive lounge, where we had cocktails and canapés each evening, didn’t boast similarly gorgeous views.
www.fourseasons.com

BLUE
We first experienced BLUE, a five-star Taj hotel in Woolloomooloo’s wonderfully restored, old wooden finger-wharves, many years ago when it was a W hotel, at the suggestion of a friend with impeccable taste. We were living in Abu Dhabi and had returned ‘home’ to Sydney for the first time in five years to see family and friends. We wanted somewhere cool to catch up with friends where you pick a bar, name a night and people drop in whenever they please, so you’re not running around trying to see people and stressing about not getting time with everyone. Just off the lobby, in the centre of the hotel, with lofty ceilings and splashes of colour and potent cocktails and plenty of comfy ottomans, the bar was one of Sydney’s hottest at the time and we had a memorable night. We loved the vibe so much we stayed next time we were in town. On that occasion we arrived in Sydney after an overnight flight from Dubai and not long after checking in I developed a headache so debilitating we had to extend a night. My memory of that stay was mainly of the incredibly comfortable bed that I didn’t want to leave and the lovely views out the window. We stayed again this year and although the decor of the light-filled rooms hasn’t changed, being a Taj, the hotel has a less funky vibe and more relaxed feel than it did as a hip W. Our picks of the rooms are the Luxury Marina View King Room and Ultra Loft Suite, both with panoramic city views. Make sure you lunch at Otto on the wharf. There are few better spots for lunch in the sun in Sydney.
www.tajhotels.com

The Darling 
When we first stayed at the apartments at The Star (see this review), formerly known as Star City, the glamorous new boutique hotel The Darling, going up next door, hadn’t yet opened and we were disappointed we might not get to experience it before we left Australia. As luck – or bad luck – would have it, poor flight connections en route from Perth to Lord Howe Island meant we had a late afternoon arrival in Sydney and an early morning flight to Lord Howe the next day. Brilliant. We loved The Darling. This is the sort of hotel we got used to when we lived in the UAE and spent a lot of time hopping around the Middle East on magazine assignments that they don’t have enough of in Australia. It reminds me of a cross between the InterContinental Dubai Festival City, W Hotel Doha and The Grey Beirut. It’s a chic hotel with clean contemporary lines and sexy curves, and quirky touches, and a superb fit-out. The only hotel like it in Australia with the same level of style is Melbourne’s Crown Metropol. We were lucky to get a swish Jewel Suite, and if you click here you’ll see our room with its jaw droppingly gorgeous Sydney Harbour Bridge and city views.
www.thedarling.com.au 

Sydney Harbour YHA
This is perhaps the first accommodation guide to feature reviews for both the Four Seasons and a YHA on the same page, but we are all for uniting people through shared philosophies and travel preferences rather than segregating travellers by budgets and bank balances, and the Sydney Harbour YHA at The Rocks easily has harbour views to rival those of the Four Seasons. Some travellers might actually prefer the YHA’s watery vistas – from both the sprawling rooftop terrace and Opera House-facing rooms – as Circular Quay is so close you can hear the sounds of the ferry horns and on a breezy day smell the salty sea air wafting in from the heads. We stayed two nights in a private double room at the invitation of YHA and while it wasn’t an accommodation option we’d normally choose – we’re married and we’re working, so we like our privacy, comfort, space, and need a table big enough for both of us to write at – it was fine, and the views from our double room were fantastic. Would we stay again? You know we probably might if we needed to be around the Quay. Would we recommend it to people? Absolutely! If you’re on a budget, this must be Sydney’s most affordable and best located accommodation – and then there are those gob-smacking views…
www.yha.com.au

Get there and away – for affordable onward travel, trains to other state capitals are a good option if you haven’t travelled out of Australia cities, although they’re expensive by overseas standards. Flying will cost around the same price and you’ll find cheap tickets at Flighthub. Flying is obviously faster but you don’t get to see Australia’s magic countryside. For interstate rail travel departing from New South Wales, buy your train tickets in advance through Countrylink.

Booking a stay – we often organize accommodation directly with hotels when we’re working as we’ll have shoots and interviews to arrange, but when not working we tend to use booking sites. We’ve just discovered Turquoise Holidays, which has a beautiful collection of carefully curated boutique properties in Australia, including some of our favourite Sydney city hotels, such as BLUE and the Four Seasons, above, as well as The Lyall in Melbourne, which we reviewed here.

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