Further afield – Sydney day walks

One of my favourites places for day walks. Unlike New Zealand most are easily accessible by public transport, usually a train or scenic ferry ride.

Watsons Bay to The Gap
At the mouth of Sydney Harbour is one of the most beautiful spots in the city, with wonderful beaches and views. Easily reached in just over twenty minutes by ferry from the CBD. A short walk will take you to The Gap, an impressively battered and shaped stretch of headland, and further along to a scenic lighthouse.

Manly to North Head
Take Sydney’s most famous ferry route out to Manly and head along the coast to the huge North Head, taking you from the thronged (and thonged) masses of Manly Beach to relatively remote feeling bush inland before arriving at the historic former School of Artillery buildings.

Blue Mountains
Only a couple of hours away by a remarkably cheap (if rather stop start) train trip lies the seemingly endless expanse of the Blue Mountains. A good place to start is the Echo Point lookout, a 25 min walk from Katoomba station, before heading down the aptly named Giant Stairway past Three Sisters and passing through Scenic World.

Bondi to Coogee Beach
Probably the most popular coastal walk in Sydney, connecting two stunning yellow sand beaches via a well worn track. Best visited in late October to enjoy the Sculptures by the Sea trail, though you’ll be there with hundreds if not thousands of others, joys of big cities, which is why I don’t live in one…

Coastal Track
At 31km this may be stretching the definition of a day walk for most, but it saves on camping out overnight, and you can get trains to the start and end of the track. Has a bit of everything, colourful rock formations, palm trees, surf beaches, aboriginal rock carvings, waterfalls, dense bush, and plenty of cliff top views. Covered properly in this post.

The Spit to Manly
Probably the second best known coastal track in Sydney, though I wasn’t entirely convinced, other than the stunning views from Sydney Harbour National Park encompassing Manly, North Heads, Watsons Bay and Mosman. Best done from The Spit to save the best for last, though try to avoid returning around 5pm. On a Sunday spring day I ended up waiting 45 mins, and still wasn’t entirely confident of being one of the 950 passengers to make the next ferry.

Mt Ku-ring-gai to Apple Tree Bay
Deeply average walk an hour north from Central by train, descending though bush to some water, then back up the hill.