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An excellent local with entertainment most nights, including comedy on Mondays. The place really jams on Latino Sundays, when crowds pack in to hear the Latin bands.

Proclaimed in 1879, this is Australia’s oldest national park and the world’s second oldest. The 15,074-ha (37,248-acre) park is 32 km (19 miles) south of Sydney. Here you’ll find subtropical rainforests, deep valleys, cycle and walking trails, rugged ocean beaches, sandstone clifftops, heathlands, mangroves and inland lagoons. There are several picnic- and campgrounds, and if you’re lucky you could spy a swamp wallaby, a satin bowerbird, a pied oystercatcher or the endangered tiger quoll. A tram from Loftus Station connects with the visitors centre on Sundays and public holidays.

First established in 1833 as “Sandy Course”, it became known as Royal Randwick in 1992. The racecourse is a lush green surface surrounded by charming old stands. Autumn and Spring Racing Carnivals attract large crowds to watch Australia’s top horses in action.

The best Sydney market for vintage clothes and bric-a-brac.

Although Australian Rules football is catching on in Sydney, the locals still go nuts when the big fellas from Sydney’s professional league battle it out at Sydney Stadium. If you can’t book a ticket, pull up a pew at your local pub and catch the action on the small screen.

The irascible and disliked Governor Bligh threatened to curtail the privileges enjoyed by officers of the NSW “Rum Corps”, so named for their use of liquor as a form of currency. They “arrested” Bligh as retaliation in 1808, but their coup was short-lived as they were soon ordered back home to England.

Rushcutters Bay, now the mooring of choice for some of Sydney’s finest yachts and the home of the Cruising Yacht Club, was the site of one of the settlers’ first run-ins with the local Eora people, on 30 May 1788. The Eora speared two convicts, who were collecting rushes for roof thatching after having stolen a fishing canoe. Today, this pleasant park contains tennis courts, a quaint picket-fenced cricket ground and stadium, lovely Moreton Bay fig trees and a pleasant kiosk and café. The park is much loved by both locals and their poodles.

From a penthouse atop the Woolloomooloo Finger Bay Wharf, the star of Master and Commander continues to enjoy water views.

Park’s two most famous novels, The Harp in the South , (1948) and its sequel Poor Man’s Orange (1949), explored life in 1930s Surry Hills, which was then one of Sydney’s poorest slums. She is also a prolific children’s author and penned the much-loved Muddle-Headed Wombat series.

One of the few hotels in the gay and lesbian enclaves of Camper-down. The hotel is also near Parramatta Road, where buses leave for the city and Leichhardt. Relax in the pool, sauna or games room.