Secret Sydney

Marrickville in Sydney’s Inner West has been named No. 10 in the top 40 coolest neighbourhoods in the world by Time Out – and, despite living in Sydney all my life I’m ashamed to say, I haven’t really explored it properly. Here is why you must add Faversham Lane to your list of things to…

The date is 5th July, 1938. The place is Rose Bay, Sydney. An Empire Class flying boat rumbles and bobs towards its departure point and then turns slowly into the wind. As the engines roar, the plane gradually gathers speed before skimming across the sparkling, blue waters and starting its lazy climb into the sky….

Barrenjoey Lighthouse sits majestically on Sydney’s most northern point – Barrenjoey Head at Palm Beach. Positioned 91m above sea level, the lighthouse can be reached by a couple of walks and offers breathtaking views. It’s an easy day trip from Sydney and a great place to bring overseas visitors – they may recognise the lighthouse…

Before the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney Harbour was filled with ferries and punts plowing their way across the blue waters to join the north to the south of the city. There were private and public punts with them all providing a simple, small and spectacular journey. With the opening of the bridge…

On a recent wander through the city one quiet evening my wife and I stumbled upon a small bird sitting still on a railing within Macquarie Park. The dull light of the evening dusk obscured our view and we thought that this small bird was such a brave little thing, standing ever so still as…

Tucked away on the eastern shore of Hen and Chicken Bay is the small and secret suburb of Wareemba. Out of all the 658 suburbs in Sydney, this is the smallest in land area and one of the most least known and unheard of in all of Sydney considering where it is located. It only…

In a suburb known for its high concentration of Groodles, Cavoodles, Labradoodles and Schnoodles, there once lived an old, ugly, battle-scarred mongrel dog with arthritis in all four legs who was almost totally deaf. His name was Billy. For 17 of his 19 years, the fox-terrier walked the streets of Mosman behind his loving master…

For decades, Sydney locals would plunge the depths into Wynyard Station by using the wooden escalators in York Street. Terribly nostalgic with a rhymical rattling sound, over time these would become more of a problem than they were worth. With great sadness they would be replaced. So, what to do with the four tracks of…

For the 2004 Biennale of Sydney, Arkansas-born Berlin-based artist Jimmie Durham created this installation from a 1999 Ford Festiva hatchback purchased in Homebush, and a two-tonne quartz boulder from a Central Coast quarry – painted with a face. Originally the car was parked on the Opera House forecourt, and onlookers watched as Durham painted a…

Located in the Parramatta River off Henley Point is a broken marble column. Many locals have no idea that this was not the result of an accident, but the column was designed this way for a very good reason. This point is the finish line of the course on which Australian sculling champion Henry Searle…