The majority of the important Garden Island naval base is off-limits to the strolling public, but you can visit the tip by ferry. Here, there's a pleasant garden and lookout as well as a cafe and a naval museum. It's a well-arranged modern display with wartime paraphernalia, weapons, control consoles from a submarine, and a periscope which you can use to observe the harbour. There are also some rather unusual sailors' trophies and a gloriously out of place porcelain iris with butterfly.
Garden Island
Sydney
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
3.49 MILES
Definitively Sydney, Bondi is one of the world’s great beaches. It’s the closest ocean beach to the city centre (8km away), has consistently good (though…
1.23 MILES
Sydneysiders love their giant 'coathanger', which opened in 1932. The best way to experience this majestic structure is on foot. Stairs and lifts ascend…
Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park
15.36 MILES
A spectacular mix of sandstone, Australian bushland and tranquil water vistas, this 14,928-hectare park forms Sydney’s northern boundary. It’s located 20…
3.27 MILES
Lovely Watsons Bay, east of the city centre and north of Bondi, was once a small fishing village, as evidenced by the heritage cottages that pepper the…
1.28 MILES
A 12-minute ferry ride from Circular Quay, this forested harbour hillside is full of kangaroos, koalas and similarly hirsute Australians, plus numerous…
0.89 MILES
Designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, this magnificent building is Australia's most famous landmark. Visually referencing a yacht's sails, it's a…
4.83 MILES
About 3km south of central Manly, spectacular North Head offers dramatic cliffs, lookouts, secluded beaches, pretty paths through the native scrub, and…
19.85 MILES
This central section of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park is a spectacular wilderness, with awe-inspiring vistas over Pittwater and Broken Bay, hidden beach…
Nearby Sydney attractions
0.41 MILES
In colonial times this small fortified harbour island was a sorry site of suffering, used to isolate recalcitrant convicts and nicknamed ‘Pinchgut’ for…
0.45 MILES
This peninsula was named in 1810 after Elizabeth, Governor Macquarie’s wife, who ordered a seat to be chiselled into the rock from which she could view…
0.74 MILES
The top deck of a multistorey navy carpark doesn't sound like a great place to hang out, but this beautiful park is a hidden gem, offering a secluded…
0.77 MILES
Now dwarfed by 20th-century apartments, Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay's elegant Greek Revival mansion was one of the finest houses in the colony…
0.78 MILES
These stone stairs were built in 1870 to connect spiffy Potts Point with the Woolloomooloo slums below. The steep steps run past an apartment block:…
0.79 MILES
Cremorne Point (technically Robertsons Point; Woolwarra-jurng to the Eora people) is a beaut spot for a picnic on grassy Cremorne Reserve, or for a swim…
0.8 MILES
Lindesay is rarely open, but, aside from Nicole Kidman inviting you in for tea, this is probably your best chance to look inside an actual Darling Point…
0.8 MILES
A former wool and cargo dock, this beautiful Edwardian wharf faced oblivion for decades before a 2½-year demolition-workers’ green ban on the site in the…