So we had always imagined taking 2-3 weeks and doing Australia and New Zealand in one big trip, mainly because of cost and time to get there. Well, we came across an amazing deal (as a lot of our trip stories begin) and couldn’t pass it up even though we only had a week for the trip. My wife has a great blog post on the long flight experience on our sister blog.
Upon arrival in the early morning, we were surprisingly refreshed. We went to our hotel, the Amora Jamison, and paid a little extra for an early check-in to drop our bags and freshen up. We walked a couple blocks and had an amazing breakfast at Creperie Suzette before continuing the walk around the main harbor and down to the famous Sydney Opera House. We joined a tour that was starting about 15 minutes after we got there. It was very informative and the views from inside were incredible too. Highly recommended tour. After the tour, we continued walking around the harbor to a lookout point called Mrs Macquarie’s Chair (named after a seat carved into a cliff by prisoners). Note, the walk between the two is much longer than it appeared but we were pot-committed by the time we realized it. It did provide some great photo ops of the Sydney skyline, opera house, harbor bridge, or any combination of the three. On the walk back, we meandered through the Royal Botanic Gardens to get some new scenery. Within the gardens, there’s a venue of sorts called The Calyx. It has rotating exhibits and at the time was hosting a large carnivorous plant display. I wouldn’t say it’s worth going there just for the exhibit but it was a good break if it’s along or close to your route. We were back at the hotel around 2:30pm local time (9:30pm Chicago time). We thought it would be great to nap a couple hours, get dinner, and then sleep again around normal local bedtime. Unfortunately Edie’s body didn’t agree with that plan and she got sick upon being woken up from her nap. I’ll spare you the details, but know that we won’t try that strategy again. We stayed in for the night and I picked up pizza for Jaime and I to end the evening.
The next morning we headed in the other direction away from the harbor towards downtown and ate a great breakfast at Kansas City Shuffle. Continuing south, we stopped briefly at an art exhibit called ‘Forgotten Songs’ Sound Sculpture. It’s on a public street and is comprised of roughly a 100 bird cages hanging above the street, nameplates on the ground with types of extinct bird species, and speakers playing their bird calls. Afterward, we were one of the first visitors to the top of the Sydney Tower Eye (you know me and my observation decks!). The views from the top were spectacular, as expected. Next, we headed west to Wild Life Sydney — essentially a small zoo with all of the Australian animals you’d want to see. There’s a larger proper zoo across town that we never made it to. At Wild Life, you can do a “koala encounter†where you get up next to the almost-always-sleeping koalas for a photo op. You aren’t allowed to touch them, but it was fun nonetheless. Next to Wild Life is an area along the coast called Barangaroo full of shops and restaurants. We had lunch at All Hands Brewing House there before taking a harbor ferry over to Manly Beach, about 30-40 minutes away. Manly Beach is a super cute area that was relatively calm due to it being their winter but it’s built up to support a TON of tourists. We hung out at the beach and had some ice cream before heading back to swim at the hotel and calling it a night.
Since we breezed through a lot of our Sydney to-do list, we decided to check out some of the hip / up and coming neighborhoods. We started by taking a taxi to Surry Hills and having breakfast at Bare Naked Bowls. They primarily serve bowls that are kind of like a smoothie with various nuts and fruit on top. It was fantastic! Unfortunately, Edie wasn’t feeling well due to drinking too much pool water the night before, so we walked about 15 minutes through the neighborhood to Nútie Donuts for breakfast #2. She still didn’t eat but the walk was enjoyable (with her on my shoulders). We took a taxi back to the hotel to checkout and head to the airport!
We originally only planned to visit Sydney due to time and expense, but since we came all this way and weren’t sure when we’d come back, we decided that we had to go to the Great Barrier Reef. The reef is along the northeast coast of Australia, and most tours leave from the city of Cairns, above a three hour flight away. The flight there was uneventful. Since this part of the trip went over Jaime’s birthday, I surprised her by staying in the Presidential Suite at the Pullman Hotel. It was bigger than our condo and had three large balconies overlooking the water! We think the jet lag finally kicked in on day three though because the kids were exhausted. We put them to bed and ordered sandwiches from Grill’d using Uber Eats.
The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel before walking down to the piers and checking in for our tour with Sunlover Reef Cruises. I found them online and chose them because they are known for being the most family-friendly company. Our specific tour was to Moore Reef with a brief stop at Fitzroy Island where some people got off to fish or stay overnight. It’s a surprising two hour boat ride out to the reef — for some reason I always felt it was right along the coast. Edie still wasn’t fully recovered from the pool water / jet lag, so I had to carry her around all morning. She perked up during the boat ride though and had a blast most of the day. Once we arrived, we docked at a party barge that had all the gear you’d need, an underwater viewing area, a glass-bottom boat, a semi-submarine (which broke down during our visit), and a water slide! We spent a full four hours at the reef which seems like a lot but it flew by and we could have spent much longer. Part of it was that the girls weren’t ready to go snorkeling on their own so we took turns going out solo and then eating lunch back on the boat. After getting back to land, Edie was lethargic again so we traded in Jaime’s fancier tapas birthday dinner for Edie’s choice — tacos — at a restaurant named Zambrero. It was top notch Mexican food and beer. On the stroll back to the hotel from dinner we stopped at one of Cairns’ attractions, the Night Markets. It was booming and we were shoulder-to-shoulder most of the time but it was a fun stop and the kids each got a small souvenir.
After a good night’s rest, we flew back to Sydney, this time staying at the Shangri-La Hotel. When we pulled up there was a Bentley, a Tesla, and a Lamborghini parked out front also checking in. The thing about Sydney is that the 3 and 4 star hotels were overpriced at $170-$180 but the 5 star hotels were underpriced at $200, so it was an easy decision to upgrade. When checking in at the desk, they tried to upsell me to a better room — they didn’t know who they were dealing with! I haggled with them for about 5 minutes and got a much better room than their original offer for half the price. It definitely paid off though; the views were the best I can recall anywhere in the world. We had sweeping views of the harbor bridge, the harbor itself, the ferry terminal, and the Sydney Opera House in one amazing panorama. We took turns lying down on the cushioned window ledge and just taking it all in day and night. We walked over to the harbor for an early dinner and drinks at Squire’s Landing before walking along the harbor (yes, again — it’s worth it), took a break to watch a street performer draw a crowd and do silly tricks, and ended the evening eating a crepe and walking through a Christmas in July Village.
For the last full day, we decided to check out another breakfast place in the Surry Hills neighborhood called Bourke Street Bakery, which was delicious. We love to walk around and just get a feel for an area, people watch, stop at random cafes, etc, so that’s exactly what we did. Once I noticed we were accidentally near something on my backup to-do list, I figured we might as well stop. That stop was a place called Purikura Photoland, a super advanced Japanese photo booth where you get to edit and decorate your pictures and print them as stickers. It was within a Japanese arcade that was closed when we arrived but the person running it showed up right before we gave up so we got to try it out. It was kind of fun but if you’re going to Sydney, it’s definitely a backup list type of place. We walked another mile or so to Darling Harbour, briefly taking in the views before hopping on a ferry over to Luna Park (and Coney Island within it). It’s an amusement park that doesn’t have an entrance fee, but you need to buy bracelets for any of the rides. The price structure is crazy and verges on being a rip-off, but the kids loved the rides so all was not lost. Once we did all the rides they were eligible for, we continued down the coast to Wendy Whiteley’s Secret Garden, a garden built illegally though was so nice and well-loved that the city officially sanctioned it. Meandering through the garden and a residential area, we landed at Red Yum Thai for a yummy dinner. The sun went down during dinner and it was suddenly cold (low 50s), windy, and starting to rain, so we took a cab back to the hotel for a swim instead of going back to Luna Park.
Our last morning was supposed to be short but overnight I started getting texts about our connecting flight being delayed by 12(!) hours so they put us on a different flight out. I had to call and change the flight again because we had to be back Sunday evening for work. This one left 6 hours later than our original flight, so we decided to visit another up and coming neighborhood we read about called Newtown. It was a bit grittier than Surry Hills but still really cool to walk around in. We had a great brunch at a restaurant called Brewtown and then took the commuter train back downtown. We still had a few hours to kill so I looked up the best destinations reachable by ferry (we loved the ferry system!). We ended up going to Watson’s Bay, a small fishing village where we had fish and chips, a speciality that the area is known for. We had a lovely chat with some locals sharing the table with us before beginning the long journey back home.
Sydney has a special place in our hearts now — a place we thought was isolated and unreachable suddenly felt like we could live there at some point. We’ll definitely be back the next time a deal comes up!