2 weeks in Sydney in Agust

[2weeksinSydney]

We are spending 2 weeks in Sydney in August; will have our own accommodation and the trip is mainly to see DH family. We have been there a few times so have done the main tourist attractions. I am now thinking this is too long to be there.

Any ideas or short trips? It will be winter too so not supper excited but that is the time we have long holidays with kids in school; we are doing a stop over in Seoul for 6 days which will be nice.

I like to experience different places so feel like I may be bored so long in Sydney as have been there about 5 times.

We have visited Queensland, Melbourne Perth, Uluru, the gold coast. Don’t feel like going to the beach after the recent shark attack.

Try Tasmania, although it might be chillier than Sydney, it’s about 2 hours flight although I appreciate you have to factor in airport times both ways. However, it’s a domestic flight so you would only need to be at the airport about 2 hours before the flight.

Hobart is lovely, lots to do, we only spent 4 days there and could’ve done with longer.

Or try Airlie Beach, you can fly into either Proserpine and hire a car or fly to Hamilton Island and get the ferry over to Airlie, it will likely be warmer than Sydney as it’s off the Queensland coast. You can go out to the Whitsundays, which are stunning.

Edited to add I clearly didn’t read the bit in your post about not wanting beaches due to shark attacks, sorry.

Thank you. Would love to see Tasmania but wondering if it will be too cold. Would look at the other idea too. We went to Hamilton Island about 10 years ago; but could go again

I know you said you’ve been to Queensland but it’s a huge state, did you just go to Brisbane or other places?

You could go to Cairns, or nicer than Cairns is Port Douglas, about an hours drive north of Cairns. Karunda in the rainforest is beautiful, easily a full day out, there’s also other attractions within a short drive from Cairns with some beautiful beaches you could stop at for a walk without going in the sea. Cairns is, from memory, around a 90 minute flight from Sydney.

What about Adelaide? We haven’t been there yet, going in March but it’s a 90 minute flight from Sydney and looks like there’s plenty to do.

You don’t mention how old your kids are, have you been to the Blue Mountains from Sydney?

Thank you, some good ideas. We have not been in Adelaide, Cairns or Port Douglas. We have been in the Blue Mountains a few times. teens are 15 and 18.

Sydney to Cairns flight time is about 3 hours.

Oops, my poor memory strikes again! Still worth going imo.

Also, Sydney to Adelaide is about 2 hours flight time…..

We do this frequently, but usually spend the whole time in Sydney to maximise the time the kids can spend with their paternal family. I tend to revisit favourite haunts to fill the weeks which usually revolves around eating, so we go to places like Bathers at Balmoral (with a walk around Bradleys Head), New Shanghai in Ashfield, emporers puffs in Chinatown, makoto sushi, Gelato Messina, the kids love yogurberry so that makes the list several times over. This year we took the ferry out to Manley, and had a potter, but there are equally nice walks on the south side.of the harbour around Nielson park and South head. We also did quite a few kid friendly activities like treetop adventures in Western Sydney parklands, which is basically Go Ape but we pretty much had the course to ourselves as the Aussie kids are in school.

Further afield, have you already booked your flights? Could you do open-jaw ticket and fly into Sydney and out of Darwin and have a stop in Darwin to see Kakadu and Litchfield. Obviously you'd need to add a domestic flight to get to Darwin. It's a bit far to do as a return trip from Sydney. Otherwise Jervis Bay is favourite.spot, but it's like 4 hours drive from Sydney. Inland from Sydney the Jenolan caves are pretty cool, they are up beyond Blue Mountains and there is also the red hand cave, with aboriginal rock art, in the Blue Mountains themselves. You can often see wild wallabies on the walk to the cave.

Winter is a good time for whale watching. Port Stephens or Jervis Bay may be good spots and are a couple of hours north / south of Sydney.

It’s 2.5 hours from central Sydney to Jervis Bay.

New Caledonia! Two hours to Noumea, then 30 min flight to Iles des Pins.

Some great ideas here. Thank you

Well, if you are going in August, one might think you wouldn’t be swimming anyway so the shark thing would not be a problem.

Stop in Perth on your way home and go chasing wildflowers. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

Thanks you. We went to Perth and WA in 2024. It was great. We swam we Whale sharks.

Thinking we may go north for a bit of sunshine; however sharks and jelly fish do worry me a bit.

This is good too as teens love eating out and restaurants in Australia are usually good.

Do you ski at all? It’s ski season in Australia, and while our resorts are not exactly European standard it might be a cool experience.

You have to pretty much go through Canberra on the way to the snow, there are a few interesting things to see and do, museums, war memorial etc.

Tottis in Bondi is my favourite restaurant.

It’s not jelly fish season in August so you should be fine in Queensland for swimming and snorkelling.

The Central Coast is lovely - lots of beaches of different types and nice coastal walks if that's your thing. About an hour from Sydney by car or a bit more by train. As others have said, too cold for swimming but probably still pleasant enough to be outside.

I’d second Cairns/Port Douglas as well. We also visit family in Sydney regularly, but it was our first time in August. We were a bit shocked by the cold tbh! (though it didn’t help that we were staying in a poorly insulated house with a cost-conscious relative).

We flew to/from Cairns then drove an hour up to Port Douglas. Our DC are slightly younger, but we went on a crocodile spotting cruise and a “river drift” (basically rainforest walk and then floating back on a lilo - in a different croc-free river of course!), which would be good with teens. Then Kuranda was great, take the historic train up, then cable car down. The zoo at the top lets you see all the animals up close and a lot less crowded than Taronga! Finally we went for a quick trip to the barrier reef from Cairns. Went overnight on Green Island.

We actually took our relatives with us, which meant we didn’t miss out on family time, but it was good to all get a change of scene together. My parents used to do that with our grandparents and it made for some great memories.

Oh, and this was a beautiful place for lunch! My MIL’s favourite part of the trip:

We flew to Cairns and drove to Port Douglas, which is the most gorgeous journey..

Have you been the to the Royal National Park (other side of Sydney to Blue Mountains)?