For­get the Syd­ney Opera House, Bondi Beach and even the thrill of being in this stun­ning city dur­ing the famous New Year’s Eve fire­works. It’s a celebrity sight­ing that got my daughter’s vote.

“I’ve just seen ‘Stretch’ from The Fan­tas­tic Four and he said hello!” she beamed, hardly able to con­tain her glee at see­ing her first real celebrity face to face. I have to feel a tad sorry for the said celebrity (Ioan Gruffudd is his name for those out of the loop). Here he was, inno­cently enjoy­ing the spoils of Aus on a remote lit­tle hide­away only acces­si­ble by boat, and he comes face to face with a fan. In the flesh, I have to say, he passed for any other fun-loving tourist pump­ing up a tube for his young sons to be towed behind a boat – and to his credit, he was ami­able and appeared quite happy to be accosted by yet another star struck female.

More of a chal­lenge was find­ing Aus­tralian poet, Dorothea Mackellar’s (‘I love a sun­burnt coun­try, a land of sweep­ing planes’…) gra­cious for­mer home, Tar­ran­gaua that looks out onto the water of Lovett Bay. I was in the throes of read­ing Aus­tralian author, Susan Duncan’s account of liv­ing in the poet’s home amongst the tight lit­tle Pittwa­ter com­mu­nity she and her hus­band regarded as fam­ily. A friend’s par­ents had kindly offered to take us out on their boat to The Basin, a beau­ti­ful spot on the edge of a nature reserve. On the way, I scoured cliffs to try and catch a glimpse of the home – and what a thrill when I spot­ted it! The same sort of thrill, I gather, that my daugh­ter expe­ri­enced when face to face with her celebrity.

Ear­lier, there had been another ‘celebrity sight­ing’ at the infa­mously trendy Bondi Beach of the tele­vi­sion show, ‘Bondi Res­cue’ fame. My three chil­dren were cer­tain they spot­ted Dean “Deano” Glad­stone talk­ing on his mobile phone. Bondi, inci­den­tally, was pretty bleak com­pared to the tree-lined beauty of other beau­ti­ful North­ern beaches. Give me Manly or Bal­moral any time. But spot­ting “Deano” saved the day. Celebri­ties and iconic poets aside, Syd­ney has much to offer – even though it comes in a tad more expen­sive than our home­town, Bris­bane. A for­mer Syd­neysider friend once warned that ‘you pay for every­thing’ and I under­stand why. Per­haps it’s because there are so many beau­ti­ful recre­ational spots to main­tain. Pay­ing for park­ing at every beach we went to was par for the course.

Our whirl­wind week saw us take in The Rocks where the First Fleet landed and which now houses a styl­ish assort­ment of restau­rants and high end shops. Our walk through the his­tor­i­cal area coin­cided with the colour­ful Sat­ur­day and Sun­day mar­kets. Then it was on past Cir­cu­lar Quay, to the Syd­ney Opera House, and through the breath­tak­ing Botanic Gar­dens where vis­i­tors are encour­aged to walk on the grass and hug the trees! Fur­ther on was Mrs Macquarie’s chair — an exposed sand­stone rock cut into the shape of a bench (by con­victs), on a penin­sula in Syd­ney Har­bour. The seat was believed to have been carved for the com­fort of Gov­er­nor Macquarie’s wife, Eliz­a­beth in 1810 and folk­lore has it she would sit and wait for ships to arrive from Eng­land with much-needed let­ters ‘from home’.

Gov­ern­ment House, in the north-west cor­ner of the gar­dens, is quite spec­tac­u­lar. Built in 1845, it’s a grand exam­ple, appar­ently, of the Gothic Revival style. We missed out on the tours, but these hap­pen daily for a fee. It was a long walk back to our friend’s home and our Syd­ney base, in Neu­tral Bay but worth return­ing on foot. Views from the bridge are sen­sa­tional and allow one to take in the beauty of the har­bour. The walk also enabled a perusal of the quaint fed­er­a­tion style homes along the way. We even stum­bled upon Nut­cote, the for­mer home of May Gibbs, one of Australia’s best known authors and illus­tra­tors namely of Snug­gle­pot, Cud­dlepie and the Banksia men fame.

New Year’s Eve saw us take to the streets again. The crowds were out in force so we were rec­om­mended a Bradley’s Head van­tage point below Taronga Zoo (worth a visit) in the posh sub­urb of Moss­man. Die-hards parked in the sub­urb hours ear­lier, wheel­ing large eskies (cooler boxes) of food and drinks to a look­out spot with a view of the bridge. Some eager rev­ellers were already tightly packed on the beach over­look­ing the bridge, intent on sit­ting out the some eight hours before the much antic­i­pated fire­works finale.

A jam-packed week inter­spersed with show­ers, included a trip into the city cen­tre to view the ornate Queen Vic­to­ria build­ing – an opu­lent precinct occu­pied by designer shops and beau­ti­ful people.

We drove home along the New Eng­land high­way through coun­try­side sat­u­rated by much needed rain, and passed breath­tak­ing rural scenes of green pas­tures and impos­ing oaks. While we drove through the night on the way to our des­ti­na­tion, we opted for an overnight stay in the quaint lit­tle town of Glouces­ter to break the jour­ney back, trav­el­ling via Thunderbolt’s Way bypass­ing Armi­dale, Glen Innes, Ten­ter­field, Stan­thorpe and Warwick.

The jour­ney was made all the more com­fort­able by the recent addi­tion of a portable dvd player that kept three chil­dren uncom­plain­ing for hours on end. A road trip with­out the ‘are we there yet?’ is a suc­cess­ful road trip indeed.

I loved:

• Fish and Chips under a giant More­ton Bay fig at Bal­moral Beach
• Day­light sav­ing which sees beach­go­ers still enjoy­ing the surf at 8.30pm
• Fly­ing kites and skim-boarding at Manly Beach
• Boat­ing through Pittwa­ter
• Pic­nick­ing at The Basin, in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park
• Walk­ing across Syd­ney Har­bour Bridge in the early evening back to Neu­tral Bay
• Watch­ing a spray paint artist at The Rocks mar­ket
• See­ing the New South Wales coun­try­side drenched in rain
• Old wooden bridges
• Pic­ture per­fect farmhouses

A few things I want to do on our next visit:

• Walk from Clon­tarf Beach to Manly
• Walk from Bondi to Coogee
• Visit Padding­ton Mar­kets
• Peruse Syd­ney Swap and Sell Mar­ket, Flem­ing­ton. (Sydney’s biggest garage sale!)
• Indulge the senses at The Good Liv­ing Grow­ers Mar­ket, close to Dar­ling Har­bour, first Sat­ur­day of every month
• Visit Palm Beach and walk to Bar­ren­joey Lighthouse

More pho­tos are on the JournoNews Pho­to­stream at Flickr