Two hundred hectares of ponds, fig avenues and horse tracks, laid out in 1888 and saved by a strike in 1972.
Opened on 26 January 1888 to mark the centenary of the colony, Centennial Park is Sydney’s equivalent of Hyde Park or Central Park — 189 hectares of formal avenues, ponds, sports fields and remnant bushland, four kilometres from the CBD.
With Moore Park and Queens Park it forms the 360-hectare Centennial Parklands.
Federation
On 1 January 1901, the Commonwealth of Australia was inaugurated at a pavilion in this park, with Lord Hopetoun sworn in as the first Governor-General before a crowd of around 100,000.
The Federation Pavilion, a permanent structure of 1988, marks the site and holds the original commemorative stone.
The Green Ban
In 1972 the state government proposed building a sports stadium in the park. The Builders Labourers Federation placed a green ban on it at the request of residents, and the plan was abandoned.
It was the same tactic that saved The Rocks, and it is why the park is still a park.
What is in it
The ponds — a chain of them, remnants of the Lachlan Swamps that supplied Sydney’s water through Busby’s Bore from the 1830s. They hold black swans, ibis, ducks, eels and a great deal of birdlife.
The Grand Drive, a 3.8-kilometre loop road, closed to traffic at weekends and used constantly by runners and cyclists.
Horse riding — there are equestrian tracks and several stables offering rides, which is unusual in a city centre park anywhere.
Fig avenues of Moreton Bay and Port Jackson figs, some of them original 1888 plantings and enormous.
A flying fox colony roosts in the park, and their evening departure to feed is a genuine spectacle.
Around it
Paddington and Woollahra border it to the north — terraces, galleries and the Paddington Markets on Saturdays.
Moore Park holds the Sydney Cricket Ground and Allianz Stadium, and the Entertainment Quarter with cinemas and a Wednesday and Saturday farmers’ market.
Practicalities
Free, open dawn to dusk. There is a café, a restaurant and a sports centre.
No direct train. Buses from the city, or walk fifteen minutes from Bondi Junction station.
Cycle hire operates in the park at weekends.
More Parks & Outdoors
Royal Botanic Garden Sydney
Thirty hectares wrapped around the harbour beside the Opera House, free, open every day since 1816.
Sydney Harbour National Park
Bushland, islands, gun emplacements and rock engravings, scattered around a working harbour and reached by ferry.