Blues Point Reserve

Very close to Blues Point Reserve, but completely hidden! Quiet harbour views and ideal for picnic on the grass.

Luna Park is an older style amusement park on the harbour's edge. The huge grinning face over the entrance is a Sydney icon.

Two points to the west of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Balls Head is a large park and picnic area with extensive harbour views and walking tracks. The park also contains the Coal Loader Centre for Sustainability - an industrial zone turned into a community area where visitors can also walk through the original tunnels. Adjacent is the MV Cape Don, a decommissioned ship which holds tours occasionally. Also has a restored Aboriginal rock carving of a whale.

An outdoor public pool almost under the Harbour Bridge with spectacular views. It opened in 1936 and features sea water, sauna and outside snack area. Conveniently close to Sydney CBD. Winter water temperature can be very cold.

Wendy Whitely, the widow of famed Australian landscape painter Brett Whiteley, has cleared out disused railway land in Lavender Bay to create a large, unofficial park, packed dense with Australian and exotic flowers.

Berry Island first connected to the mainland with a causeway from Wollstonecraft farm in the 1800s. Later quarried sandstone made a permanent land bridge to the island. The land bridge is now lawns with a playground, and a loop walk circles the island, which will take around 20 minutes. There are interpretive signs about the Aboriginal heritage of the area. The last part of the walk can be done rock hopping along the sandstone rocks on the coastline. There is an Aboriginal carving there, but it basic, and quite hard to make out. There is a lookout at the end of the point, with views across the harbour to Balmain and Birchgrove. You can also see across to HMAS Waterhen Naval Base.