Heads up! We’re working hard to be accurate – but these are unusual times, so please always check before heading out.
The best places to watch the sunrise and sunset in Sydney
Calling all love fools: here are the top places in and around town to catch the sun on its way up and on its way down
Roses are lovely, and fancy dinners divine, but for our money few things are more romantic than plonking down somewhere to watch that great big star of ours do its thing. With our prime spot on the eastern seaboard, we do get great sunrises in Sydney... but don't dismiss our sunsets: a pink-skyed disappearing act over the Parramatta River is something to behold.
1. Cockatoo Island
2. Bondi to Coogee coastal walk
3. Garie Beach
4. Hornby Lighthouse
5. Icebergs
6. Prince Alfred Park Pool
Larkin St Lookout
This lookout at the Waverton Peninsula Reserve affords postcard-pretty views of the Sydney CBD skyline. And while we are not crazy-big fans of views that are mostly concrete and glass, get here at the right time and you get a double-whammy of skyscrapers reflecting the pink setting sunlight at the same time their lights are coming on.
Leichhardt Park
This park on the shore of Iron Cove solves the problem of "how do you see a decent sunset over the water in the east?" with a little visual trickery. Look straight across the cove to Drummoyne and that sun setting behind the suburb in the west will look as if its melting into the water.
Sydney Tower Eye
Dudley Page Reserve
This park has one of the most picturesque views of Sydney. You’ll see glimpses of the city skyline from the fringes of the Eastern Suburbs right across to the North Shore.
Opera Bar
Beauty and convenience don’t always go hand in hand, but Opera Bar is a glam exception to the rule. It manages to be both one of the most enviably located bars in the city as well as its most advantageous spot for a pre-show drink. On the day you snag a seat facing the Harbour Bridge up on the raised promenade you should go buy a lottery ticket, because lady luck has smiled on you.
Watsons Bay Boutique Hotel
The pub fronts onto the gentle shores of the harbour on one side and a rolling green park on the other.
Barangaroo Reserve
If you want panoramic views of Sydney Harbour, this is the place.
Watch from a boat
The best ferry trips in Sydney
This love affair with the crushed sapphire liquid expanse of the Harbour dates back many, many thousands of years to when the Gadigal people of central Sydney paddled their canoes around the bays. Today, those journeys of discovery are provided by Sydney Ferries when you clamber aboard one of the picture-postcard green-and-yellow ferries that still scoot across the harbour as they have for the past century-and-a-half.