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Originally known as Cooks River Road, King Street has been an important thoroughfare since the days of European settlement, when it linked Sydney Town with farms in the Cooks River Basin. Newtown once belonged to a few rich men, but by the late 1800s it had become a thriving township. By then King Street looked much as it does today, bustling and lined with shops. Many stately homes on the streets off King Street have been restored, but most of the houses began as poor workers’ cottages. Migrants arrived in the 1960s and ’70s, along with rockers, goths and punks, and Newtown is still peopled by an eclectic mix. Above the grungy street level, you’ll see that the upper façades of many shopfronts have retained Victorian plasterwork detail.

Rates at the über-stylish and formerly super-expensive Kirketon have been slashed, so you can afford to splash on a spacious executive room. This hotel contains some of Sydney’s hottest destinations, including Salt.

Kirribilli is Australia’s most densely populated suburb. But it is better known for two residences that occupy its tip: Admiralty House (1843) and neighbouring Kirribilli House (1855). The former was the residence of the Commander of the British Royal Navy, and is now the Sydney residence of the Governor General, the Queen’s representative in Australia. The latter is the official Sydney residence of the Australian Prime Minister. The Gothic Kirribilli House has one of the best views in Australia.

The park follows Lane Cove River, which flows into Sydney Harbour. Here you’ll find echidnas, sugar gliders, mangroves, dusky moorhens, sheltered gullies and open eucalypt forests with stately Sydney red gums (Angophora costata ) growing out of the sandstone. At dusk its smooth pink bark is almost luminous.