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Designed by Phillip Cox, this stadium (see Tankstream & Aussie Stadium) was completed in 1988 to coincide with Australia’s Bicentenary. Although the ground was ostensibly designed for Sydney’s preferred football code, Rugby League, it has occasionally permitted upstarts from the southern code, Australian Rules, to take to the field. During the 2000 Sydney Olympics it even allowed its turf to be trampled by soccer players. Aussie Stadium has also held several concert performances, which have included shows by U2, Robbie Williams and Barbara Streisand.

Since opening in 1998 these studios have created Moulin Rouge , The Matrix series, Mission Impossible II and Star Wars: Episode II . The massive entertainment complex houses 15 restaurants, bars and cafés serving everything from Asian to Mediterranean fare. For the kids there’s mini golf, cinemas, bungy trampolines, seasonal ice skating, an interactive TV studio, an indoor playgound, bowling and electronic games. There are also four live performance venues and numerous shopping options. The Farmers Market offers gourmet delights from the country, and the Weekend Market has gifts, clothes, movie memorabilia and crafts.

Robert Cooper (1776–1857) was one of Sydney’s more successful emancipists and a self-confessed smuggler. Originally sent down for receiving stolen goods, he made a small fortune as Sydney’s first distiller, specializing in gin flavoured with juniper berries: hence the name of this residence. Diagonally opposite the Town Hall, it was built in 1824 to house his 28 children from three marriages. The house was threatened with demolition for several years, but finally spared in the 1980s and restored by the National Trust. It is closed to the public, but you can view it from Oxford Street.

Oxford Street is Sydney’s most fashion-conscious shopping strip. Although it runs all the way from Hyde Park to Bondi Junction, the prime shopping drag is on the north side of the road between Barcom Avenue and Queen Street, which runs down to Woollahra. Surry Hills’ Crown Street is less conspicuous and polished than its northern rival, but it’s gaining a reputation as a good spot to source homewares, designer and retro furniture and fashion items. It has some great cafés, ethnic restaurants and grocers, pubs and factory outlets, and its grunginess is the perfect antidote to Oxford Street’s fashionista frenzy.

This Classical Revival Town Hall on Oxford Street was designed by J Kemp, a local architect who won an international competition to design a civic centre that matched the suburb’s increasing status. The main building was completed in 1891, and the clock tower that now dominates was added several years later. The hall underwent extensive restoration work in the 1990s and is no longer used by the council. But it does house the suburb’s library, offices, cinemas and a radio station. It is also a regular venue for private functions and corporate events.

Tucked down a Surry Hills backstreet, the former studio of artist Brett Whiteley is now a public museum and art gallery. Whiteley painted some of Sydney’s most iconic works. He loved the harbour and the nude, and both feature in his paintings. In 1985 he converted this former factory into a studio but, just seven years later, he was found dead from a heroin overdose in a motel room in the south coast township of Thirroul. The gallery has regular exhibitions and displays the artist’s studio much as it was before he died.