The Southern Beaches The grande dame of Sydney's beaches is Bondi, which has a majesty all its own. The focus is on the sand 'n' surf, but the suburb has a unique flavour blended from the mix of old jewish and Italian communities, dyed-in-the-wool Aussies, New Zealand and UK expact, working travellers and surf rats who live here bonded by their love for the beach. In recent years Bondi has shed much of its tired facade and a new lick of paint, some landscaping and a rach of new cafes has been enough for it to be suddenly 'rediscovered' by innercity trendies. Just south of Bondi is Tamarama, a lovely cove with strong surf. There is a superb beach hemmed in by a bowl-shaped park and sandstone headlands at Bronte, south of Tamarama. Cafes with outdoor tables on the edge of the park make it the perfect place for a day of rest and relaxation.

Manly The jewel of the North Shore, Manly is on a narrow peninsula which ends at the dramatic cliffs of North Head. It boasts harbour and ocean beaches, a ferry wharf, all the trappings of a full-scale holiday resort and a great sense of community identity. It's a sunsoaked place not afraid to show a bit of tack and brashness to attract visitors, and makes a refreshing change from the prim upper-middle-class haqrbour enclaves nearby.

Kings Cross The Cross is a cocktail of strip joints, prostitution, crime and drugs, shaken and stirred with a handful of classy restaurants, designer cafes, international hotels and backpacker hostels.It attracts an odd mix of low-life, sailors, travellers, Japanes tourists, inner-city trendies and suburbanites looking fir big night out. The Cross has always been a bit raffish, from its early days as a centre for bohemianism to the Vietman War era, when it became the vice centre of Australia. While the vice is real and nasty enough, Sydneysiders are quite fond of the Cross. It appeals to the larrikin spirit, which always enjoys a bit of devil-may-care and 24-hour drinking. Many travellers begin and end their Australian adventures in the Cross, and it's a good place to swap information, meet up with friends, pick up work, browsw the hotel notice board and buy or sell a car.

'The Hanging Swamp' The Blue Mountain National Park protects large areas to the north and south of the Great Western Highway. It's the most popular and accessible of the three national parks in the area, and offers great bushwalking, scenic look outs, breathtaking waterfalls and Aboriginal stencils.

That doesn't stop the city for being a more lively than many of its younger Australian counterparts though. The Pacific Highway runs north from Sydney and is the gateway to the great beaches, surf and scenery of NSW's northern coastral strip. The Princes Highway heads south from the capital along the state's less developed southern coast. Sydney 1999 Sydney Australia's oldest and largest settlement is a vibrant city built around one of the most spectacular harbours in the world. Instantly recognisable thanks to its opera house, harbour bridge, Sydney also boasts lesser-known attractions like the historic rocks, Victorian-era Paddington, excellent beaches such as Bondi and Manly, and to superp coastal national parks on teh city fringe. Two musicians at Circular Quay Sydney Harbour Bridge The much-loved, imposing 'old coat hanger' crosses the harbour at one of its narrowest points, linking the southern and northern shores and joining central Sydney with teh satellite business district in North Sydney. The bridge was completed in 1932 at a cost of $20 million and has always been a fovourite icon, partly because of its sheer size, partly because of its function in uniting the city and partly because it kept a lot of people in work during the Depression Playing the 'ditch'... Statue of liberty... The Southern Beaches The grande dame of Sydney's beaches... Lars infront of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge - July 1999 Sydney Opera House is dramatically situated on the eastern headland of Circular Quay. Its soaring sail-like, shell-like roofs were actually inspired by palm fronds, but may remin dyou of turltles engaging in sexual congress. It's a memorable experience to see a performance here, and just as fulfilling to sit at one of the outdoor cafes and watch harbour life go by. The Opera House has four auditoriums and hosts classical music, ballet, theatre and film, as well as opera. On Sunday, there is free music on the building's 'prow' and bustling craft market in the fourcourt. Move your mouse over the Sydney Opera House The hullabaloo surrounding construction of the Sydney Opera House was an operatic blend of personal vision, long delays, bitter feuding, cost blowouts and narrow minded politicking. Construction began in 1959 after Danish architect, Joørn Utzon won an international design competition with his plans for a $7 million building. After political interference, Utzon quit in disgust in 1966, leaving a consortium of Australian architects to desing a compromised interior. The parsimonious state government financed the eventual $102 million bill through a series of lotteries. The building was finally completed in 1973, but it was lumbered with an internal design impractical (too small, for one thing) for staging operas. One of the skysrapers in the city centre ____________________ The Rocks Sydney's first white settlement was on the rocky spur of land on teh western side of Sydney Cove, from which the Harbour Bridge now crosses to North Shore.It was a squalid, raucous place of convicts, whalers, prostitutes and street gangs, though in the 1820s the nouveaux riches inexplicably built three-storey houses on the ridges overlooking the slums. It later became an area of warehouses and maritime commerce and then fell into decline as modern shipping and storage facilities moved away from Circular Quay. At the Rocks An outbreak of bubonic plague at the turn of this century led to whole streets being razed and the construction of teh harbour Bridge resulted in further demolition. Since the 1970s, redevelopment has turned the Rocks into a santised, historical tourist precinct, full of narrow cobbled streets, fine colonial buildings, converted warehouses, tea rooms and stuffed koalas. If you ignore the kitch, it's adelightful place to stroll around, especially in the backstreets and in the less developed, tight-knit, contiguous community of Millers Point. In the Air - coast line from Sydney to Melbourne... Cosy , bohemian Glebe is south-west of the centre, bordering to the northern The Glebe Area Glebe Road edge of the University of Sydney. It has a large student population, a cruisy cafe-lined mainstreet, a tranquil Buddhist temple, aroma therapy and crystal galore, and several decent hotels and some backpackers. New South Wales New South Wales is the site of Captain Cook's original landing in Australia, and teh place where the first permanent European settlement was established. Today it's Australias's most populous state and it has the country's largest city, Sydney. Those expecting NSW to be alittle more than Sydney's hinterland are in for a real surprise. The state is rich in history, some of it tainted with the brutality of the early penal settlement, but much of it bound up with the gold ruch and expansion westward. The state has fabulous coastal and mountain scenery and dry western plains stretching all the way to the 'back of Bourke'. Circular Quay The state capital, with its opera house, harbour bridge is a good place to start your exploration of NSW.It was at Sydney Cove, where the ferries run from Circular Quay today, that the first European settlement was established in 1788, so it's not surprising that Sydney has an air of history which is missing from many of the other Australian cities. The Harbour Bridge Kings Cross The Cross is a cocktail of strip joints, prostitution, crime and drugs, shaken and stirred with... Manly The jewel of the North Shore, Manly is on a narrow peninsula which...   Around Sydney There are superb national parks to the north and south of Sydney and historic smal towns to the west, which were established in the early days of European settlement but survive today as pockets engulfed by urban sprawl.   The Blue Mountains, part of the great Divine Range,were an impenetrable barrier to White expansion from Sydney. Despite many attempts to find a route through - and a bizarre belief among many convicts that China, and freedom, was just on the other side - it took 25 years before a successful crossing was made by Europeans. A road was bulit soon afterwards which opened the western plains to settlement. The first whites into the mountains found evidence of Aboriginal occupation but few Aboriginal people. it seems likely that European diseases had travelled from Sydney long before the explorers and wiped out most of the indigenous people. The Blue Mountains National Park has some truly fantastic scenery, excellent bushwalks and all the gorges, gum trees and cliffs you can dream of. The foothills begin 65km inland from Sydney and rise as high as 1100km. The blue haze which gave the mountains their name is a result of the fine mist of oil given by the eucalyptus trees. For the past century, the area has been a populat gateway for Sidnysiders seeking to escape the summer heat. Despite the intensive tourist development, much of the area is precipitous that it's still only open to bushwalkers. be prepared for the climatic difference between the Blue Mountains and the coast - you can swlter in Sydney but shiver in Katoomba. It usually snows sometime between June and August. Bushfires in 1994 burned large areas of the Grose Valley but the Blue Gum Forest escaped almost intact. Move over the MOUNTAINS and read more about The BLUE...