The Sydney Opera House sails glow pink in evening light across choppy harbour water

New South Wales · Gateway SYD

33.86° S, 151.21° E

A harbour city for the first and last nights.

SYDNEY

Sydney and the Blue Mountains

Most journeys start and end here, so we use Sydney properly: two nights on arrival to sleep off the flight beside the water, a day in the Blue Mountains with a guide who knows the quieter walks, and a last night with the Opera House in the window before the long flight home.

Right season: Mar to May
Nights we'd give it: 3 to 4
Fly into: Sydney (SYD)
Getting in: Most long-haul flights land here

The airport is 25 minutes from the harbour.

Month by month

When to go

Compare every region

The right season
Good
Possible, with trade-offs
Out of season
This month

Sep to Nov

Warm days, jacarandas in late October, the harbour pools open. Our favourite months.

Dec to Feb

Hot and humid, with long light and busy beaches. Book harbour tables early.

Mar to May

Settled, warm water, fewer people. The Blue Mountains are at their clearest.

Jun to Aug

Cool and bright. Fine for the city and the mountains; not for swimming.

High aerial view of Sydney Harbour with the Harbour Bridge, Opera House, city towers and boat wakes across turquoise water

The Three Sisters sandstone pillars rise from forested cliffs above the hazy blue Jamison Valley

Waves wash over the edge of a turquoise ocean pool on the rocks at Bondi, with open sea to the horizon

What we'd do

The harbour by water taxi
Watsons Bay for lunch, back past the Opera House at dusk.
Blue Mountains, the quiet side
A guided day on the escarpment walks away from the lookout crowds.
Bondi to Coogee on foot
Six kilometres of sandstone cliff path, early, before the heat.
An Aboriginal-led harbour walk
The foreshore read as Gadigal Country, with a Gadigal or Eora guide.
Ocean pools
Bronte, Bondi Icebergs and Wylie's Baths, each cut into the rock.
A long harbour lunch
We book the table; you leave the afternoon free.

Whose Country

Gadigal people of the Eora Nation (central Sydney and the harbour); Dharug and Gundungurra peoples (Blue Mountains)

Sydney Harbour is Gadigal Country. Rock engravings and middens survive along the foreshore and in the national parks around the city.

Aboriginal-owned and -led operators we'd book

Dreamtime Southern XGuided walks through The Rocks and around the harbourAboriginal-owned

Ownership details are being confirmed with each operator.

Visiting respectfully

Rock engravings are fragile: walk around them, never on them.

Country, region by region

Where to stay

Stays in Sydney

All stays

The kind of place we book here. Your proposal names each property.

The Sydney Opera House on Bennelong Point with the city skyline behind, under a peach sunrise sky over still harbour water

Sydney · City hotel

A sandstone hotel on the harbour

A sandstone building on the water, walking distance to the Opera House.

Photo: the area, not the property · Price on enquiry

Sample journeys

Journeys through Sydney

All journeys

A small crescent sand cay sits among patchy coral reef in clear turquoise water on the Great Barrier Reef

12 to 14 nights · May to October

Rock, reef, rainforest

The classic first journey, with time left in it.

3 nightsSydneyThe harbour, a Blue Mountains day, early nights.
3 nightsUluru-Kata TjutaFly direct. First light at the Rock, dawn at Kata Tjuta.
4 nightsPort Douglas and the DaintreeFly to Cairns. The ribbon reefs by private boat; Mossman Gorge with Kuku Yalanji guides.
3 nightsLizard IslandAn hour by light aircraft. Reef off the beach.

Three flights, every one under four hours. This is about the most we'd fit into two weeks.

Sydney · The Red Centre · The Reef and the Daintree

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