Sydney & the Central Coast 2025

We had a short holiday in Sydney and then drove up to Central Coast for a couple of days.

Circular Quay is always an interesting place to visit. On this occasion we saw the Crown Princess leaving and then Royal Princess took her spot shortly after.

We admired the new buildings around Barangaroo, caught the ferry to Cockatoo Island where we watched a near miss when a sailing boat pulled in front of a ferry.

In the evening we went for a walk at Clifton Baths in Chowder Bay and then to watch the sunset from Bradley Head.

We visited Bondi Beach, walked along the Botanical Gardens and enjoyed a couple of shows at Sydney Opera House (Dido & Aeneas and Picnic at Hanging Rock) at Sydney Opera House.

Our first stop on the way to the Central Coast was Staples Lookout with beautiful views towards Brisbane Waters.

We then drove to Gosford where we visited the Regional Art Gallery where they had an interesting exhibition by war artists on. Their Japanese garden is very nice and peaceful as well.

We stopped at Ken Duncan’s studio as well to have a look at some of his photographs.

We stayed in Terrigal. It is a very interesting place, with lots of pretty steep streets and it can be really busy at times (with people and card). We explored some of the local cafes and went for a walk along the foreshore.

We drove to see the entrances to Lake Tuggerah and Lake Macquarie and on a hunt to find the Kurra Kurrin petrified forest in Lake Macquarie – turns out it is all around the lake, as volcanic ash fell onto a forest. We found a really nice park though, Blackalls Park, to explore. We stopped at Myuna Bay rest area as well to take in some beautiful views over the lake.

We went for a walk on Macmasters Beach then drove to have dinner at a very nice Greek restaurant called Kefi, next to an oyster farm.

We drove to Toronto to meet our friends on Sailing Sensations who happened to be around Lake Macquarie at the same time, and spent a few wonderful hours sailing around Lake Macquarie on their sensational Leopard.

Qantas brought us back home safely.