The
character and the life of Sydney Kenneth Slessor, 1938 |
 New Year's Eve Fireworks |
It really is a great place to live (and visit), with many diverse, fascinating and entertaining features. My childhood was spent growing up near the water on the harbour, with a fanatic sailing family background, it was only natural that much time was spent messing around in boats. The annual vacations were spent camping on ‘Eventide’ a boat my grandfather had commissioned when in his sixties. We would spend every Christmas and Easter vacation on the boat at Pittwater or Cowan Creek to the north of Sydney. Sydney is truly blessed aquatically - not just for the famous Sydney Harbour, but there are three other Harbour like bodies of water within the metropolitan area. Port Hacking which sits to the north of Royal National Park (about 30 km south of Sydney) is a picturesque harbour, unfortunately cramped by sandbars, but still a fine harbour if dredged. Further to the north of Port Hacking is Botany Bay, which was considered to be a harbour fine enough to send the First Fleet to in 1787 ( Sydney Harbour was not seen by Captain Cook and was not ‘discovered’ by the English until after the First Fleet arrived in January 1788). They transferred the settlement to the current site shortly after finding it.
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A further 30 km north is, I consider, the real beauty of aquatic Sydney, at Pittwater, Cowan Creek and the Palm Beach peninsula. At Palm Beach, the ocean beach is a classic yellow sandy beach, with a slight pink hue and lined with Norfolk Island pine trees. Here the wealthy of Sydney have their weekenders, one of the country’s most exclusive clubs is here, yet the dress code is extremely casual, members are able to swim at the beach and relax at the club in informal wear. At the northern end of Palm Beach is Barrenjoey which is at the mouth of Broken Bay. Opening into Broken Bay is Pittwater, another picturesque harbour, with aqua blue water (a tidal anomaly, because Broken Bay is the mouth of the Hawkesbury River which is usually muddy, carrying sediment out to sea). |
Links to Other Sites
Lonely Planets Guide to Sydney
Manly and Bondi
Manly Beach
Lorikeets and other birds
| Sydney is fortunate to have had many native birds return to its environs over the past few decades. Rainbow Lorikeets (pictured right) are a very common sight. And are commonly fed by locals. Other birds commonly sighted around the city are Sulphur Crested Cockatoos and Galahs. |  |
The Sydney Morning Herald - catch the local news
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'Eventide' anchored in Cowan Creek