Sydney · Late August 2026
We spent a week in Sydney with four young kids and a marathon in the middle of it, and we based ourselves in Kirribilli — the quiet bit of harbour just past the north end of the Bridge. Almost everything below started with a walk down the hill to the wharf.
This is the honest version of the list: only places we actually went, with what we thought.
If you are travelling with kids, the north side of the harbour solves a lot of problems at once.
Kirribilli wharf to Circular Quay takes minutes and is genuinely one of the best things you can do in Sydney — you come around the point and the Opera House and the Bridge arrive at the same time. Our kids asked for the ferry over most of the paid attractions. Tap on with a card and treat it as transport that happens to be a harbour cruise.
A handful of streets with a good cafe on most of them, a gelato shop, restaurants for dinner, parks at either end and Luna Park a walk away. We could do a whole day without a car or a ride share, which with four kids is the entire ballgame.
Ranked by nothing. Grouped by where you'll be when you get hungry.
Our first dinner, and the right one: casual seafood inside the Sydney Flying Squadron sailing club, right on the water at Careening Cove. Fish and chips, boats to look at, no one minds noise. If you land jet-lagged with children, start here.
The neighbourhood Mexican, minutes from the Bridge. Cheerful and loud enough that a table of six with four kids disappears into the room. Good for the night you don't want to plan anything.
Wood-fired pizza and Italian on the Kirribilli–Milsons Point edge. We ordered it in on the night of the race and ate it flat on the couch, which is the highest recommendation a restaurant can get from a marathoner.
A relaxed Italian diner from the Ormeggio team, sitting right on the water beside the Spit marina with boats on three sides. We used it for the pre-race carb load and it was the meal of the trip — pasta, water, masts, kids allowed to be kids.
Blistered, properly charred wood-fired pizza on King Street, from the LP's Quality Meats and Porteño crowd. We went the night after picking up the race bib. Small room and a queue — go early if you have a stroller in the party.
Pizza lunch on our last day in the big, high-ceilinged dining room with the wood-fired oven going. A Surry Hills institution that is completely relaxed at lunchtime, which is when to bring the kids.
Yum cha with the trolleys still doing the rounds — we had a long lunch here with friends. Trolley service is a gift with kids: they choose with their eyes and food arrives immediately.
Not a recommendation so much as a public service. Burritos from one, rice and poke bowls from the other, both fast and everywhere. On the days the schedule went sideways, this combination fed everyone without an argument.
Sydney makes it very hard to get a bad coffee. These are the ones we went back to.
A small cafe sitting out over the water on the wharf itself, watching ferries come and go. Walk down, order, and wait for your boat. Hard to beat as a first stop of the day.
The comfortable all-day option in the village — roomy, modern, good for a sit-down breakfast when you're not in a rush to be anywhere.
An all-day French cafe with a bakery counter, a short walk up from Kirribilli. Pastries for the kids and an actual coffee for the adults; good on a morning when you need something between a snack and a meal.
Saturday morning inside the old railway workshops: NSW growers, an AP Bakery stall, fresh juice, scones. We grazed our way through breakfast standing up. Go early — it wraps up around lunchtime and the good pastries go first.
Where we ate the morning after the marathon: bright room, serious coffee, a brunch menu built for people with an appetite. AP Bakery is upstairs in the same building, so you can add bread and pastries to whatever you already ordered. We did.
The original Bill Granger room, and the ricotta hotcakes are still on the menu for a reason. We came for a late breakfast that turned into lunch. Order the hotcakes even if you think you're a savoury person.
The Melbourne roaster's Crown Street shop — a straight-down-the-line espresso stop when you're walking Surry Hills and want the coffee itself to be the point.
Four kids, a long walk, and a wobble in the afternoon. This is the fix.
Right in the village, and therefore the one we visited most. Reliable, quick, close enough to walk to in pyjamas-adjacent clothing.
Small-batch gelato made daily on King Street, with a genuinely good vegan half of the cabinet. There is usually a line and it moves. Pair it with pizza a few doors down and you have a whole evening.
The Sydney gelato everyone will tell you to get, and they're right. Rotating specials board; the classics never miss.
Self-serve frozen yoghurt, pay by weight. Not gourmet and not the point — kids build their own, everyone gets exactly what they wanted, no one negotiates with a menu.
Museums that hold up, parks that saved us, and one zoo you take the ferry to.
Going inside changes the building from a postcard into a place. The tours are well paced and the kids stayed with it — and you're a two-minute walk from the ferry when it ends.
Free to walk into, big and calm, with enough variety that everyone found something. Easy to do in an hour or stretch to three; a good rainy-morning card to hold.
Small, sharp, and about the city you're standing in — the right size for kids' attention spans. Its canteen does sandwiches and salads, so you can turn the visit into lunch without leaving.
Booked almost as an afterthought for a Thursday evening and it turned into one of the best things we did all week. You get the history of the hill first, then the telescopes come out and you look at the moon and the stars through them — all four kids were completely absorbed. Sessions run after dark, so book ahead and plan a late bedtime.
We went on the afternoon of race day, which tells you how manageable it is. Australian animals plus a harbour view that would be worth the ticket on its own. Arriving by ferry from the Quay is half the fun.
You don't have to buy a ride pass — the walk along the water past the big face, with the Bridge overhead, is free and completely delivers. Clark Park above it is a good spot to let everyone run before dinner.
Water play, climbing, slides, swings, at a scale that lets four kids scatter safely. Budget more time here than you think; it is genuinely hard to leave.
The local green patch down by Careening Cove. Nothing famous about it — that's the appeal. Ten minutes from most of Kirribilli and a good pressure release before or after dinner.
A playground with a library attached to it, which is the best possible combination on a day with a lot of walking: half the kids climb, half sit down with books, everyone resets.
Late August is the end of winter, so this is a walking-and-swimming day rather than a lying-on-a-towel day. Still absolutely worth it.
Start at the beach and walk south along the clifftop path — sandstone, sea, and swimmers below you the whole way. You can turn around whenever the smallest legs say so; every section is good.
The famous ocean pool at the south end, with waves breaking straight into it. It is cold in August. Swim anyway — it is the single most Sydney thing on this list.
Where we landed afterwards for lunch and a drink: a big, sprawling, deliberately family-friendly beachfront pub with room to spread out. The correct ending to a salty morning.
You can skip Katoomba and the crowds. The lower mountains are closer and, with kids, better.
About eighty minutes of proper bush — creek bed, rock-hopping, big gum trees, the sound of water. It is a real track rather than a paved lookout walk, so wear shoes you can scramble in, but our kids handled it and loved the rocks most of all.
Lunch in the village afterwards. Casual, family-friendly, roasts its own coffee, and has room for a group that has just come out of a gorge covered in dust.
How we'd plan it: drive or train out in the morning, walk first while everyone is fresh, then eat. The whole thing works as a single day out from the city.
Sydney is a very good running city, largely because the harbour keeps interrupting you.
The reason we came. It starts on the north side, crosses the Harbour Bridge in the first few kilometres, and finishes at the Opera House — and the hills in the second half are real, especially through the eastern suburbs. Colin ran 2:50:37. If you're a spectating family, staying north of the Bridge made the morning enormously easier.
Our favourite training run of the week: out through Neutral Bay and around Kirribilli Point, roughly eleven kilometres of quiet streets, water on your left, and the Bridge appearing at intervals. Rolling rather than flat.
Flat, short, and right on the water underneath the Bridge. Perfect for easy legs the day before a race — or for anyone who just wants twenty minutes with the best view in the city.
Built from the parts of our week that worked best, arranged so you're never backtracking.
The one thing we'd tell anyone: pick somewhere to stay that has a ferry wharf at the bottom of the hill. Everything else on this list gets easier from there.