Sydney: The Seven Day Road Trip

Looking over Sydney Harbour Bridge, and Opera house

Sydney felt like a whirlwind. Matt likes a new place every other day. I like to nest for a few days (or weeks…). Relationships are all about compromise right? We spent two days in Sydney before renting a car and heading out to Mudgee and Lake Macquarie, where we stayed with friends of family. Here’s a rundown of what we ate, drank and saw. That’s all anyone really cares about.

We ate:

A lot of avo on toast. Aussies do breakfast well, you can tell we stole avocado on toast from them.

Phenomenal Japanese and sushi.

Amazing greek food. Head to Santorini on Oxford Street.

We drank:

Proper Aussie coffee. Heavenly…
A lot of wine. Mudgee is wine country, we went for a tasting at The Cellar by Gilbert.

We stayed:

📍Bayswater Sydney: Kings Cross Backpacker district

📍Crecy Hotel: Oxford Street/Gay District. I loved this location. Really good vibe, loads to eat and loads of bars.

📍Beach House in North Avoca. This place belongs to a friend of family. It is on Airbnb but not in your average traveller's budget…

Itinerary:

We spent 2 days exploring Sydney before we rented a car and headed to Mudgee, Lake Macquarie and North Avoca. We were visiting people so didn’t take a standard backpacking route. I would recommend heading to the wine region around Sydney via the Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains are about an hour outside of Sydney so we stopped on the drive for a hike and explore. Rent a car if you want the independence or organise a day tour if you don’t fancy driving yourself. Driving in Sydney was as you’d expect from a major city, so do this if you really enjoy driving… or drive in London for fun… Either way, the Blue Mountains are one of the main draws outside of the city so I wouldn’t miss it.

Family friends hosted us on a farm in Mudgee, a quaint farming town in wine country with a population of approx 12,000 people. We enjoyed an afternoon of wine tasting, probably the most cultured thing I’ve done in a while. We then headed to Lake Macquarie, a sleepy but pretty lake community outside of Sydney. I can’t say we did all that much, apart from exploring and drinking copious amounts of coffee. That’s the point of road trips right?

We enjoyed a spare day in Sydney between dropping off the car and flying out to Auckland, so we took a boat trip out to Manly from the city harbour. You’ll get great views of Sydney from the water and Manly is a busy and vibey beach spot. Boat trips are a great way to enjoy a view if you’re time limited!

Having squeezed in a lot before flying out to Auckland, we’ll definitely come back to Sydney. I feel like we barely scratched the surface! Enjoy a photo dump in place of lots of words.