Located next to Tumbalong Park, a lot to see and do, located…read morealong Sydney Harbor. Many attractions, play areas. museums, restaurants and shopping close by.

Even if you're a local, there's a chance you haven't stumbled upon Darling Park. This hidden gem…read moremay look like it belongs to the office blocks surrounding it, but the park - designed by a team from Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens no less - is absolutely open to the public. And it's glorious. The 3000 square metre space has a central spire, emanating from which are a series of garden beds and grassy expanses - perfect for taking a load off during a lunchtime. A circular walkway rings the garden, and it is lined with benches, tables and handy little alcoves to sit and chat. Come lunch hour of course this is teeming with white-collar folk, but if you pick your moments, this is a delightful green haven. Such a rarity in the CBD. My favourites are the wombat statues (see photo) that frolic in one of the garden beds and are just too cute for words. You can see one is stretched out on the grass catching 20 winks, which is exactly what I've done on many a visit to Darling Park.

This is one of my favorite open spaces in the inner west ..... it's full of life ..... wild and…read moreotherwise ....... full of history too .... Did you know this is where 'Bradman' scored his first ..... first class century ..... no ! ..... well now you do. It's a place to chill ..... exercise..... have kiddie parties ..... take your pet for a walk ..... or watch a cricket or baseball match ..... also perfect for a picnic with some special or anyone at all !! ...... it's Green and looks great !!! Please keep it in a great state and it will be around for many many years for another generation to enjoy. Ps ..... a great swimming pool is incorporated in the park too ..... !!! ..... bring your swimmers !!

Also known as Petersham Park, this is a great park to have a picnic, watch a cricket match, or go…read morefor a swim. It is the biggest open space in the area and you'll find lots of people exercising and playing with their kids and dogs. It almost deserves five stars, but the people using the park don't take especially good care of it. After a weekend of heavy use, there is rubbish everywhere. I take my kid to the playground here almost daily and spend a good portion of my time picking up broken glass -- I've come to the conclusion that if somebody breaks a bottle anywhere in Petersham, they pick up the pieces to distribute across the playground. Pick up after yourselves, people!!!

This entire garden is a landscape architecture gem. It has won numerous award and is the staple…read moreproject on every architecture fan's lips. A must visit. Arguably one of the best adaptive reuse project in Australia, the reservoir promotes and celebrates the beauty of its past life while revels in the future and its potential. It's wide enough to host functions and gatherings etc, and when I was there, people used it for work meetings or simply just to meet up with friends. The bench initiative where you get to grab a deck chair and sit wherever you want is genius. Protip: come during sunset and watch the world go by as the sun goes down. It is stunning.

D1 and 30-40 of her boho buddies had her 21st here. I got the food organised and dropped it off for…read moreher. Then I was told I was no longer needed. Three things amazed me about this place. First it is a brilliant restoration of an archeologically important site that can actually be used. It is not a museum 'look but don't touch' place. Second, it was kept away from developers even though its location must have made them hyperventilate at the profits that could have been made by destroying it. Third, its free. Her 21st was free! I cannot believe my luck! Apart from some students making a short film and a couple taking wedding shots there was no one else there. Chairs are provided and there are undercover areas if the weather turns, it has everything. I was overcome by my creative side, a side that appears only to me and which is denied by my family who say it is simply boredom. Anyway, I took some photos, some of my best work I think. Its a great spot.

I finally got around to being able to explore this place. Well, not quite since this place is…read moremonumentally huge, and it is absolutely impossible to pretty much explore every nook and crany in the limited amount of time that was available to me, but I did get a decent chance to wander around a large part of it, and at least say that I have been to Centenial Park, or at least more than just running in there and looking for a toilet. They do have barbeque areas, and quite a few of them, but they also have lakes, and just plain old good parkland to wander around.

Better than a hundred parks! This park is huge! It's a…read moresprawling park, full of all kinds of amenities! There's so much to see and do here- it's a fantastic park in the middle of Sydney. I rode a bike through here on the many improved trails that crisscross through this public space. Through here, there were teams practicing rugby, enough bicyclists to start a biker gang, joggers, runners, and people who were out to just take in the sunshine. As you cross through this park, you find lots of green open spaces large enough to play a full game of rugby, without running into a park bench or a tree. There's restrooms available. My favorite thing about this park is the huge stone gates at each entrance that remind you that you're entering an important public space. There's monuments throughout the park, and plenty of parking! I felt safe riding through here, just due to the sheer number of people who were out having a stroll in the park!

I debated if I should write a review about Strickland House because it is one of my favorite places…read morein all of Sydney. But, in the spirit of sharing I've decided to go ahead. A bit off the beaten track, Strickland House was once home to a Lord Mayor and then once a nursing home so the history here is in abundance. The grounds are spectacular and they boast some of the best views in Sydney. If you creep down the hill you'll chance upon a secluded beach which is now busy on the weekends, but during the week it's like your own private beach on Sydney Harbour. This is a great spot to take anybody who has never been here before - people who live in Sydney and those who don't. Creep round the back of the old house for maximum impact - when you get around the corner the revel of the view is spectacular.

There's not a lot to say here .... This wonderful parkland along the Cooks River ... on the Tempe…read moreside of Cooks River Bridge is great for anything really, cycling, picnics, walking, dog walking or even just hanging with mates. It has toilets near by ... clean & tidy .... clean BBQ facilities ..... picnic spots even for undercover days ..... It's clean, neat & tidy and follows the Cooks River for as long as you have the energy to go forward. Artistic sculptures along the way keep it interesting and clean, clear paths make for comfortable motion ..... on cycle or on foot.

When the government (lower case g, sorry Tony but you have to earn the capital) decommissioned all…read morethe naval land on the north shore it unlocked giant swathes of pristine harbour-side happy places to go explore. Georges Head is one of the best - there are old gun emplacements to tool about in, gum trees, kookaburras laughing their little heads off, and the views, oh lawdy the views, enough to strike a man blind. This is one of those places where you can legitimately use your iPhone's oft-forgotten panorama function that you never normally get to play with. BONUS: impress visiting foreigners with your knowledge of secret Sydney.

One of my favourite spots in Sydney. If you are looking for a great city walk you can climb up the…read morestairs by the Balmoral rugby / cricket grounds next to the beach and walk all the way through forest to George's Head and Chinamans beach. It is probably the best spot in town to catch the Sydney to Hobart race as the lawns here line up with the starting line ;-)) You get spectacular views of the city and there is a bit of history to this place with the barracks and gunnery. Many Sydney artists work in this area and once or twice a year there is art exhibitions and sales. There are also a handful of restaurants in this area like The Gunners Barracks, Ripples and Burnt Orange to name a few and a couple of kiosks and so on. I have walked along this area plenty and absolutely love it. A less known part of Sydney and well worth a visit.

Yesterweek, in the intense autumnal sun* I walked along the Parramatta riverbank. I was not…read moreunaccompanied. Sunday morning joggers, dog-walkers, touristy hikers passed me by while less active nappers stretched out on the grass. But my Riverside Walk was also accompanied by something else: a colonial soundscape. Before setting out on my self-guided tour of four historically-evocative artwork installations on the river foreshore, I downloaded the FREE podcast "Life Along the Riverbank" via iTunes, which includes four audio tracks and a full colour brochure of the tour. The idea is that the artworks, the text incorporated into these visual works, and the audio conjure up the colonial world of the early 1800s. You get to hear real stories of real everyday people; cons, free men and women, children, aboriginal people of the region - the Burramatta - and soldiers, while you stand in the very spots where their histories unfolded and became entangled forever. The audio tracks are great; the voiceovers capture the accents authentic to the period and the quotations have been pulled directly from primary sources. Some choice sound effects also transport you to a time when Parramatta was a brutal military garrison town. The artworks and soundscape aim to reveal "stories of hardship, love, loss, survival, order and punishment" and in that they certainly succeed! The tour itself is very short in terms of walking distance; beginning just behind the Parramatta Wharf where the Rivercat comes in and ending at the Gasworks Bridge. The audio tracks are also not overly long. I still managed to draw the whole tour out to a couple of hours, however, as I photographed every inch of the spaces at every conceivable angle and, if I'm honest, had a little difficulty finding Stop 2 and Stop 4...but I'll say more on that later. You could do the whole tour much quicker than I did. In fact, the total audio time is approximately 10 minutes. Stop 1 "STORYWALLS" harmonise nicely with the natural landscape as they look like brown hills beneath a beautiful old shady tree. Each "hill" contains text; details of notables who lived in Parramatta; an Aboriginal missionary, a female teacher, convicts (including poor Ann Mash who was sentenced to seven years for stealing a bushel of wheat!), and the painted, spear-weilding Baluderri who "came to Governor Phillip's hut in a violent rage" threatening to kill the white men who had broken his canoe." These people are made more real to you as you listen to the podcast. Stop 2 "THE BACKYARD OF HARRISFORD" was a bit hard to find! I also recommend you actually walk up the path and follow it right past the new apartment blocks there to look at the front of HARRISFORD, which was the original school for colonial children and went on to become the first King's School. Conservation work is currently underway, but there is plenty to see even from the outside. Listen to the podcast to hear the tales of students who used to play there. Stop 3 "SENTRY BOX" - you can't miss this one. A bright red and white striped artistic re-interpretation of a colonial military Sentry Box that once stood here in the 1790s. It is rather gothic-looking with the shovels and pitchforks etc that stick out the top. Inside the Sentry Box are more primary source quotes, which you can listen to on the podcast. Stop 4 "WINDMILL SHADOW" - I walked right over this one just in front of the Gasworks Bridge initially as this artwork is subtle compared to the nearby Sentry Box. It is comprised of charcoal tiles against the otherwise white cement pavement. The charcoal lines represent approximately where the shadow of Howell's mill would have fallen if it were still standing. The audio track for this one was my favourite. A 48-second folk song about Howell's Mill sung in that really open-throated colonial way that you'd normally associate with sea shanties including songs like "Botany Bay." I confess to playing that track a few times before moving on! It utterly transported me to a time when the colonists relied heavily on windmills for the power that would help them survive an incredible unforgiving environment. It's so peaceful here now, but the self-guided tour podcast and these artworks go a long way towards helping you imagine a time when it was anything but. The artworks and the podcast are all part of Parramatta City Council's "Parramatta Stories Project" and were created by historian Michael Flynn and artists Susan Milne and Greg Stonehouse. It's great that Parramatta Council has made such an effort to preserve the incredible historical heritage of Parramatta. *Review was originally written and posted 29 March 2014.

When you get off the Rivercat at Parramatta wharf, you're right at the end of the navigable part of…read morethe river. There's a little weir, with a walkway over the top, and beyond that, parks and walkways along the foreshore. When I arrived on a bright, sunny day, there was a guy fishing over the weir, officeworkers inhaling lunch under the trees and others power-walking, trying ever so hard not to puff. As I sat on the plentiful grass, a kookaburra chased off some somnolent looking pigeons and then flew off over the waterlilies. Never having visited the river here before, I was amazed to see so much green space so near the city centre of Parramatta, and greatly enjoyed my walk up to the Heritage Centre, just over Lennox Bridge. Along much of the way, you can enjoy the 'Riverside Walk' artpiece by Aboriginal artist Jamie Eastwood. It visually represents the history of the area from an Aboriginal point of view. There's little plaques giving a historical backing to the visuals, and would make a great way to educate the kids. This area's been inhabited for tens of thousands of years, and it's quite a legacy to think about as you take each step. The ancient history of this country and its people may not be as visible as the Pyramids or Stonehenge, but it's here, under our feet. It just takes a bit more imaginative effort and interest on our part to conjure up. It's only a ten minute walk or so up to the Heritage centre (and a stop on the free bus loop) and beats pounding the asphalt no end.