Heya all you Sydney people. I am setting my novel in Sydney as Canberra isn’t big enough for it. I have been to Sydney a lot however I have never lived there and mostly stayed with friends near town or near uni’s.
Anyway I am looking for those special spots, the ones you love, and the thing that most annoys you about Sydney so although my novel is set in the future, there will be some carry through as it is in a derelict city not in a future city. My characters will be wondering through by foot, so they will have time to see a lot.
Thanks Eliz
----------
51,202 / 50,000
Nov 2, 2007 - 22 41
Eliz - so many places - so little time. you don't mention a particular age group so I'm just being general.
Observatory Hill at the Rocks - great park overlooking the harbour and right next to the bridge. You have to access it from the Rocks and most people dont know how to get up to the road so it is never crowded. Big grassy slopes and massive Moreton bay figs and a band rotunda.
Brighton le Sands - Botany Bay - there is a footpath that goes right around the harbour and you can watch the planes coming in and taking off across the water while the traffic rushes past on General Holmes Drive behind you. Always busy, lots of people walking, fishing, swimming and playing in the sand and these massive jets gliding in - you can't hear them - you jsut see them so they look really graceful - almost surreal.
Darling St Wharf at Balmain. Wharf at the end of the penninsula looking across to the harbour bridge and Luna park. People fish off there andint eh morning they all stand n busienss suits waiting to catch the ferry. A coffee van sits there i the mornig and serves breakfast tot he commuters. Just up the hill is the London hotel - Saturday and Sunday afternoons, there are about 100-200 hundred people standing outside int he street and drinking - so informal and so relaxed.
Top of the Gladesville Brige. Big arched bridge - from the top you can look out over the city and in October, all of Hunters Hill is covered in Jacarandas so the suburb looks blue.
Is that the sort of thing you are after?
3,753 / 50,000
Nov 2, 2007 - 23 32
What I am really looking for is the hidden things, I have walked all around the city, but everyone who lives in a city has a special place that means something to them or has some beauty to them. And everyone has one or two things that drives them batty
for example there is an entrance to the belconnen mall that is insane, and i discovered recently that the architect was American and that the entrance makes sense if you drive on the right. After watching the area i discovered this was true. So perhaps there is a particular cafe with a view, or something that you like. I am looking for the little things not the big things.
Does that make sense
6,095 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2007 - 01 08
My favourite area is Newtown, just sitting in a cafe during the day and having a coffee or breakfast, or during the night just drinking with friends and letting loose.
150,015 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2007 - 03 25
*scrunches paper and throws over shoulder*
Pah, scrap that post, try again.
*grabs a fresh sheet*
Kino's os a great place. So's the royal botanic gardens, just behind the opera house. i love the view from the front of taronga zoo, the view across the harbour at th opera house. the view from the ferries at the bridge and opera house is great too.
I like writing on the steps of the opera house, looking across the harbour on a cool, cloudy day with a slight wind. Nice.
I don't like the top of centerpoint tower, not just because of the height, but because it's just a pain to get to. I also don't like any of the ground-level cafe's, as it tends to smell like car exhaust. Eugh.
50,249 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2007 - 03 49
Wollahra library. It's an old house type structure, so the collections fold themselves around corners and through hallways and bedrooms and pantries and suchlike.
Plus, outside is a park that overlooks the water, and it's beautiful.
The end of centennial park- across near anzac parade and kensington. It's less grass, more sand, more tree copses(sp?) and altogether better =p
The benches near the state library- they're shaded and geta breeze, you're close to the library but still outside, and you avoid the Martin Place crowds even thought you're still right there.
Kings comics on Pitt? Street. Lovelovelove. Though i don't know if they'll still be there in the future =P
Coogee beach, up on the headland there with the weird scultures that starts the walk around to Bondi. It's beautiful up there, when you're in a sea mood.
<3 Trill
7,423 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2007 - 05 19
Best spots - Everyone's pretty much got that covered. All great areas mentioned.
Worst spots:
The suburb of Warwick Farm in south-west Sydney, above Liverpool, is notorious for gang violence. They don't deliver pizza there, because delivery boys get jumped for their food, which I think is kinda funny.
Macquarie Fields is further south and is known for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macquarie_Fields_riots .
I guess really large portions of south-west Sydney can be pretty rough. I live in the area, so if you want any more info I can probably dig up what me and my friends have seen and heard about in the past.
7,059 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2007 - 06 36
Haha, I didn't know that about Warwick Farm.
Miller is also pretty bad. I heard that a drug addict killed themselves in the local shopping centre toilets recently.
Best spots:
* Happy Chef at Market City - We travel from Liverpool to eat there. Its in a food hall and its almost always busy when we go. We order a number 19 and help ourselves to some oily chilli sauce. So good.
* Another food spot: Crown Bakery at Chinatown, they sell delicious Emperor Puffs, little warm custard puffs. They are pretty popular, people line up outside to order from a little windowed room. They turn on the heater outside for people that line up in the cold.
* Pyrmont Bridge at Darling Harbour.. Sentimental reasons. I spent my teenage years holding hands with my boyfriend and walking across it. Its nice on windy days and the flags whip around. Not so great when its rainy and the monorail sprays you with dirty water from above.
Worst spots:
* Parramatta I always feel uncomfortable there, especially when it is busy. It feels like a meat market and the restaurants compete at who can play the crappiest music the loudest. Not to mention the doof doof noises. Eh.
3,753 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2007 - 23 56
Ohh thanks guys
where is the Wollahra library it sounds great for my book
19,090 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2007 - 02 27
best spot in sydney.....
its actually in chatswood (i knwo i can hear everyone groaning). but if you go down this little sidelane and down the back of some houses there is this perfect circle of oak trees. On a full moon night the place is magical..... this bit of purity in the suburbs.
50,249 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2007 - 02 46
haha.
Erin can't spell.
Woollahra. And i'm tentative about the double 'L'
My god, that's sad.
In any case, the library is around Double Bay/ Edgecliffe suburbs.
For instance, i'd take the train from the city out towards Bondi. Get off at Edgecliffe station (they have a newsagents stand there that sells junior mints, the BEST chocolates-in-a-box EVAR) and walk upupup the main street, past Double Bay and up the hill to the library, which is on that road. Or you could catch a bus- the terminal is above the trainstation.
*grins*
It's really cool- and a good spot indeed.
Also- around Paddington and Surry Hills you have the terrace area- i go to uni there (COFA) and it's full of tree lined, dead end streets, some blocked off to allow walking only, a few with cobblestones, and surrounded by terraces (which i love)
50,354 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2007 - 14 48
Don't forget about Kings Cross - in my opinion one of the BEST spots in town.
Places like the Cross and Newtown are slowly but surely becoming gentrified and cleaned up, unfortunately loosing a lot of what made them so awesome to begin with. If you're writing a dystopian future I'd be interested to see your take on them... have them crumbled completely., or are they now the elite areas only the privileged have access to?
The Cross has a truly amazing history and is crucial to any story set in Sydney, as far as I'm concerned!
50,249 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2007 - 02 29
Yeah- Newtown and the cross are great. All those alleys ^_^
You walk past the mouth of them and never know what you'll see. heh.
And there's a cafe off Oxford street as well- near Taylor square, but back from the road ona side street. You go down a few steps, and theres this kind of courtyard, half roofed, half tarped, with a cute assortment of couches and chairs and tables and coffe tables around it, and a corner for a DJ at night. Further in there's the bar, and more seats. The kitchen's througha window ^_^
It's great, and cool, and just has an awesome atmosphere.
I think it's just called le cafe or la cafe or something.
- Trill
51,559 / 50,000
Nov 7, 2007 - 02 40
I could add my two cents worth, but they dont make them anymore....
five cents worth?
you can keep it...
17,465 / 50,000
Nov 7, 2007 - 08 45
Also- around Paddington and Surry Hills you have the terrace area- i go to uni there (COFA) and it's full of tree lined, dead end streets, some blocked off to allow walking only, a few with cobblestones, and surrounded by terraces (which i love)
I go to uni at COFA to and Trillium's right about all the streets. Though if you attempt to drive round there and you don't know what it's like, you can easily get lost among all the dead-ends and one-ways.
For places out in the eastern suburbs, there's a couple of beaches I adore. One at La Perouse, not at the main part but further round there's an area that less people go to near where some of the boats are. The water's calm and just lovely to swim in. Then there's also Malabar beach, small and tiny. And South Maroubra, that I spent my whole childhood going too. It's too the right of the main beach and less crowded.
--Samantha--