Sydney Insiders Blog

Before the European settlers developed it, the locale we now know as Coogee was a large food bowl for the local Aboriginal people. The thickly forested shoreline was prime habitat for kangaroos and wallabies and there was an abundance of fish in the ocean. But the area was also afflicted by a terrible smell, thought…

Sydney is blessed with lots of beautiful beaches, some big and world-renowned, others much smaller and not so well-known. With so many quality beaches on offer, Sydney is almost unrivalled in the world. But these often get crowded. What can you do? There are a few secluded beaches in and around Sydney.  Be mindful that…

The Sydney Harbour Bridge was first opened in 1932. It took enormous effort to build with workers being pulled to work on the project from all parts of the world. Three ships were constructed exclusively for the task of carrying materials from Moruya Quarry for the massive 89 meter pylons. There are 16 officially reported…

If you were looking out over Tamarama beach in 1906, your view of the ocean would have been interrupted by a rollercoaster. The track ran in a loop, twisting and turning from one side of the cliffs to another, elevated on tall metal stilts. It was part of Wonderland City, a theme park that offered…

Something evil has been stalking the western suburbs of Sydney and Blue Mountains for close to 80 years. Reports of big cats that shred livestock and kill pets have been around since the 1930s, with at least 600 reported sightings in the past two decades alone. While the puma-sized creatures proved elusive during several government…

Unbeknownst to locals and under their feet you will find Lake St James, a mysterious underground water body below the Macquarie St station, where albino eels are said to lurk and secret military training ops are held in the darkness for weeks on end. Apparently. The city is indeed riddled with tunnels as a result…

  These days it’s a cute old cottage with Harbour views – the perfect vantage point to greet holidaymakers stepping off a tropical cruise. But in early Sydney, Cadman’s Cottage was the site of some pretty gruesome goings-on. One morning in November 1844, a man named Jean Videll brought a chest to the jetty (Cadman’s…

  The Grand Organ in the Sydney Opera House has six divisions, five manuals plus pedals, and is the largest tracker action organ ever built, with 131 speaking stops served by 200 ranks of pipes consisting of 10,244. It also took 10 years to build. It was budgeted for $400000 but ended up costing $1.2…

In 2010, it took 120 eggs to hold it together and four burly men to flip it, but a Sydney cafe set a record by making the world’s largest burger. The whopping beef burger cooked up at Ambrosia On The Spot, tipped the scales at 95.5kg, making it the largest ever created at the time…

The Corso. What can we say about this iconic retail strip? More than two million people walk the length of this buzzing pedestrian mall each year, which is lined with 200 retail stores, bars and eateries and also pulses with the sound of street performers. The Corso, named after a famous street in Rome, was…