Thirty hectares wrapped around the harbour beside the Opera House, free, open every day since 1816.
Founded in 1816 and the oldest scientific institution in Australia, the Botanic Garden occupies thirty hectares curving around Farm Cove immediately east of the Opera House.
Entry is free and it has opened every day since it was established.
The ground
This was Gadigal land, and Farm Cove — Woccanmagully — was a place of ceremony and initiation. The garden acknowledges this and runs Aboriginal-led tours covering plant use, food and medicine.
It was also the site of the colony’s first farm, established in 1788 and a failure — the soil was poor, the seed was old and the convicts were not farmers. The colony came close to starvation in its first two years. A patch of the garden is now planted to show what was attempted.
The walk
The shoreline path from the Opera House round Farm Cove to Mrs Macquarie’s Point is the essential thirty minutes.
Mrs Macquarie’s Chair is a bench cut into the sandstone in 1810 for the Governor’s wife, Elizabeth, who is said to have sat there watching for ships from home. From the point the Opera House and Harbour Bridge line up together, which is why it is crowded at sunrise.
In the garden
The Calyx, a glasshouse and exhibition space opened in 2016, with a large green wall and changing horticultural displays.
The Palm Grove, planted from the 1850s and one of the oldest in the world. The Fernery. The Rose Garden. The Herb Garden with a sundial.
The Wollemi pine, a species known only from fossils until a stand of fewer than a hundred trees was found in a canyon north-west of Sydney in 1994. There is a specimen here, caged, because the wild location remains secret.
Government House, the state governor’s residence, is in the grounds and its gardens are open daily with the house open on limited tours.
The bats
For decades a colony of grey-headed flying foxes roosted in the palms and did serious damage to heritage trees. They were relocated in 2012 by an extended programme of noise, and largely have not returned.
Practicalities
Free, open from 7am, closing at dusk. Free guided walks daily. There is a café and a restaurant.
The Domain adjoins it — an open parkland used for concerts, the annual carols and, historically, public speaking. The Art Gallery of NSW is at its eastern edge.
More Parks & Outdoors
Sydney Harbour National Park
Bushland, islands, gun emplacements and rock engravings, scattered around a working harbour and reached by ferry.
Centennial Parklands
Two hundred hectares of ponds, fig avenues and horse tracks, laid out in 1888 and saved by a strike in 1972.