Sydney’s Classic Coast Walk: Manly to The Spit

Beaches, check; ferry ride, check; coffee, check; wildflowers, check; wildlife (sorry - mostly big lizards), check and magnificent ocean and harbour views at nearly every turn - massive check. But Manly to The Spit is more than a checklist of Sydney icons: it has soul. For a start, it's not necessarily an easy walk. It's 10km one...

Boon Cafe: boom times

You eat at Boon Café because of the name. Boon. Who doesn’t want to go there? And you come back because the food is so good. Located in Sydney’s booming Thaitown district – the ill-defined area between Central Station and Chinatown, Boon Café is a bright, modern café cum Thai grocery store. It does a...

Backpackers free camping payday

In-the-know backpackers (which it seems is all of them) are adept at nabbing the best camping spots for free. They simply park their Wicked van in a beach carpark and wake up to a beautiful beachy sunrise. And a whole lot of lycra from the middle-aged morning walker crowd. In Sydney, predictably this free beach camping practice...

Walk Pyrmont

Pyrmont is a finger of land sluiced between Sydney's Darling Harbour and ever-so-trendy Glebe and Rozelle. It holds a grand place in Australian history, it is here that soldiers left to fight in both wars and boatloads of immigrants arrived from Europe after the Second World War, which has effectively made Australia the open, multi-cultural...

Bike Sydney

My article in Where Sydney magazine http://www.wheretraveler.com/sydney about bicycling in Sydney is now out! So here is the article in entirety. Incidentally Where Sydney has loads of tips and articles about interesting things to do in Sydney and environs (like biking for instance!) In recent years Sydney has seized the cycling momentum of other world...

When market forces don’t consume bad restaurants

Have you heard of the Vapiano Italian restaurant chain? Last Saturday, while trawling for a Sydney restaurant that didn't cost a motza, I came across Vapiano Italian Restaurant. Vapiano has outlets in Melbourne, Sydney and the Gold Coast, and a further google search revealed that there are 150 outlets worldwide. It was certainly well priced, conveniently...

Korean food fad puts Gangnam style in the shade

  Korean food, so long the poor cousin of Japanese, has finally stepped onto the foodie stage and taken a bow. Sydney is now full of fresh, fiery, authentic Korean eateries and a strong Korean culture. The SMH recently ran a feature on the explosion of Korean food in Sydney and some of the hot...

Blue Mountains: what’s new to do

If you've never been to the Blue Mountains, or it's been a while since you were there, here's a round-up, penned by yours truly, on new and old stuff to do in the mountains, which appeared in Where Magazine, a great little mag on what to do in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. BM_SW_0814 http://sydney.wheremagazines.com.au      ...

Hard landing on restaurant’s soft furnishings

I have another blog, Julie's Rant, where I rant about all things evil: politics, TV, menu malfunctions and the like. In a little shameless cross-promotion, here is a recent rant on something I hold dear - restaurant noise levels. Every time I go to a restaurant I feel myself becoming more and more like an...