Week 576 · Sydney, New South Wales
I had made a few trips to Sydney but never stayed more than a couple of days and had spent most of the time in a conference room. For this trip we went over the prior Friday night so we could see more of the city.
We have friends from work (over 30 years) living there and they took us out to Watson's Bay for dinner. It is about a 30-minute ferry ride from the CBD through Sydney Harbour to the pier and then you can either stay bayside for a relaxing experience or walk a couple of blocks for a dramatic sea view of the Pacific. A couple of great restaurants right on the bay. The ferry ride back was good as well, seeing Sydney at night.
On Sunday, we went down to see a co-worker who lived south of town near Sea Cliff Bridge for lunch. He had us park about a mile away so we had to walk across the bridge — the bridge and walk has become a tourist destination. The town was an old coal mining and export town which had apparently fallen on hard times, but with the growth of Sydney and skyrocketing housing prices the area had a mix of new and old.
As we were coming back into Sydney, we saw a Facebook post from some neighbourhood friends who were also visiting Sydney, so we were able to connect and have dinner at one of the oldest pubs (two claim the honour) in Sydney — The Hero of Waterloo. Good place to meet up with people visiting and a lot of interesting historical facts.
Once the week started, I basically worked a normal schedule but did get to see the new Sydney Metro line (which some of my co-workers had been working on for years) and visit Barangaroo and Darling Harbour — two newer and redeveloped areas of Sydney.
"Sydney is pretty nice — but objectively Melbourne is still rated higher on the Most Livable Cities list in 2025 at 4th while Sydney is languishing in 6th place."