Walk Circular Quay & The Rocks
Perpetually buzzing with ferry commuters and wide-eyed tourists, this is one of the liveliest parts of Sydney.
On foot you can quickly head from the bustle of Circular Quay to the relative tranquillity of Observatory Hill via prominent city landmarks, streets lined with heritage buildings and an atmospheric network of back lanes.
Start: Circular Quay
End: Observatory Hill
Length: 1.3 kilometres, 1 hour
1. Harbourside promenade
As you step out onto Circular Quay, you’re immediately walloped with views of Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. Head left alongside the water, past the Museum of Contemporary Art, to Cadmans Cottage. Built in 1816, this is inner-city Sydney’s
oldest surviving house.
2. Heritage shopfronts
Take Argyle Street up to George Street and turn left to admire its strip of Victorian and Edwardian shops and pubs. The Fortune of War at No.137 is one of three pubs with competing claims to the title of Sydney’s oldest, each based on different criteria. It has been in business since 1828, but the present building dates from the early 1900s.
George Street, with “Sydney’s oldest pub”, The Fortune of War front and centre. Photo: Getty
3. Shady lanes
Back towards Argyle Street, the Suez Canal provides an entry point
into a network of tiny back lanes. The name is a play on ‘sewers’ and a reference to its narrow size, tapering to less than a metre at the
George Street end. It was once a lurking point for a notorious Victorian-era street gang known as The Rocks Push.
4. Convict-hewn canyon
Follow the Suez Canal to Harrington Street and turn right to return to Argyle Street. Continue up through the mossy Argyle Cut, a canyon-like stretch of road carved through the sandstone by convict labourers between 1843 and 1867, initially using only hand tools but eventually assisted by dynamite.
5. A slice of England
The cut pops out near the sandstone Garrison Church (aka Holy
Trinity), built in 1843. Pop in to experience the hushed interior and
its colourful collection of regimental flags. Directly in front of it is Argyle Place, an English-style village green lined with terraced
houses.
6. Harbour views
Take the steps up Observatory Hill, topped by a pretty park gazing
over the harbour. Its centrepiece is copper-domed Sydney Observatory (built 1858), which can be visited on guided night-time tours. Note the time ball on the roof; it would drop at 1pm daily to provide the accurate time to ships docked in the harbour.
Your reward is this view from atop Observatory Hill. Photo: Getty
Walk Erskineville & Newtown
This route takes in busy commercial streets and back roads lined
with Victorian terrace housing, giving a taste of life in the densely
packed city-fringe suburbs of Erskineville and Newtown.
Along the way you’ll pass sites representative of the offbeat character of this part of the inner west. There are plenty of potential coffee stops, too.
Start: Erskineville Train Station
End: Camperdown Cemetery
Length: 1.5 kilometres, one hour
1. Eyeball Erskineville
Exit the station into the leafy heart of Erskineville Village with its two excellent Art Deco pubs, the Rose of Australia and the Erskineville Hotel (aka The Erko). Near the latter is the former Erskineville Town Hall, built in 1938.
2. Cinematic drag
Continue along Erskineville Road to another atmospheric old pub, the Imperial. If you’re struck with a sudden sense of déjà vu, it may be because it was from this corner that the titular bus departed in cult 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Key performance scenes were filmed inside.
3. Union power
Just before the railway bridge, little Green Ban Park owes its
existence to construction workers’ “green bans” of the 1970s and 1990s. Ceramic tiles tell the story of the 1992 union ban that led to this land being retained as a community park. Similar bans saved Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf and parts of The Rocks.
Bustling Newtown, as seen from Pride Square. Photo: Getty
4. Rainbow country
Newtown lies just across the bridge. Hang a left onto Wilson
Street to pop out at King Street near Newtown Station. Across the road, in front of the defunct Newtown Town Hall, is Pride Square, which was renamed to mark Sydney’s tenure as host of World Pride in 2023. Newtown has long had a reputation as Sydney’s second “gaybourhood”, after Darlinghurst.
5. Dreaming freedom
Turn right onto King Street, and keep an eye out for the I Have A
Dream mural, featuring an image of Martin Luther King Jr above the Aboriginal flag. Although it was painted without permission in 1991 by artists calling themselves Unmitigated Audacity Productions, it has become a much-loved symbol of Newtown – so much so that it was awarded heritage protection in 2014.
6. Gothic romance
Turn left into Church Street and take a wander through the evocatively ramshackle Camperdown Cemetery. Famous Australians buried here between 1849 and 1942 include Eliza Donnithorne, the inspiration for Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.
This is an extract from Lonely Planet‘s Pocket Sydney. Reproduced with permission from Lonely Planet © 2024