spyder2114

Hello,

My son (25) and I will be making our first trip to (Australia) Sydney in February. I am looking for a short list of must do while there as well as advice on car rentals. It seems we are missing a list of happenings either before we arrive or slightly after. We are both Divers and wonder if there is good diving in Sydney? I did find info on the Aquarium Shark dive which may be a decent substitute.

We will be staying a couple days in North Ryde area and hopefully the rest closer to downtown Sydney depedning on your recommendations. Is it necessary to rent a car or would public transit suffice? How easy is the transit system to navigate?

Thanks in advance and any assistance is appreciated.

Leumas

Welcome to FT!

I don't think you'll need to rent a car. Most things will be in the CBD and will be easily accessible by bus from North Ryde. Just get a bus pass of some sort. Visit www.131500.info The trains and ferries are also easily navigable.

The CBD is easily walkable.

The only places I'd consider renting a car for will be day trips to the Blue Mountains and the Hunter Valley. Even then, there're plenty of tour companies that will take you there and back.

Blackadder1402

Wecome to FT

Staying in North Ryde should also put you within easy access of either North Ryde, Macquarie University or Macquarie Park stations and from there about 30mins or so by train to the city.

For diving in a number of companies operate dive tours such asAbyss Scuba

I would recommend purchasing a "Sydney Pass" which can be purchased for 3,5 or 7 days more details at www.cityrail.info

If you don't want to drive can get to most toursit ares by either public transport or through tour companies such as Greyline.

All the major car hire companies such as Hertz,Budget etc have rental outlets at Sydney Airport for you to pick up (and drop off)

RadioGirl

It's been a few years since I did any diving, but it was almost all in Sydney.

The diving in the greater Sydney area is not as spectacular as, say, the Great Barrier Reef, but there are some good spots. Near the city there are both beach dives and boat dives from beaches such as Manly, and other locations that are an hour or two away, both to the north and south. Contacting a local dive shop would be your best bet - someone may be able to arrange transportation for you as well. In addition to the one suggested above, you could try Deep6, based in West Ryde, not far from where you're staying.

ozzie

Look here for cheap car hire in sydney:

http://www.bayswatercarrental.com.au...Fc4vpAodUhVZ7A

Although you probably won't need a car and parking can be a nightmare.

There's plenty of "reasonable" diving around Sydney. I regularly go out in Gordon's Bay as it's close to where I live. See here:

http://www.abyss.com.au/sites/Gordons_bay.html

To be honest if I were you I'd rather stay close to a beach than close to town. You can easily get into town on days when you need to, but there's something quite special about waking up and having a beach at your front door.

bensyd

You mean Shark Bay.

spyder2114

Great stuff, Thanks.

I like the idea of staying near the beach and am very glad to hear that the diving around Sydney is worthy.

I am second thinking the car rental. Only problem is we have to be able to get back to North Ryde within 2 hrs if notified for a business issue. So if we can figure out the tarnsit system good enough to stay within that timeframe we'd be set.

Now for the food; I have been reading and talked to a friend that was in Melbourne last year, it seems eating is very expensive. Am I getting bad info or is this true? I've found a couple websites that appear to have some good info on places to eat sorted by price, cuisine, location etc. I'd like some advice from here on some Sydney eats that are not only reasonably priced but of course good food.

bensyd

Sydney has eating available from low end right through to very expensive high end. Check out this thread for some good suggestions. Generally as a toursit you're pretty much going to get suckered into overpaying for things (unless you do your research which you have!) which might explain why your friend thought the food in Melbourne was expensive.

Last night I went for the Wednesday $7 steak at North Bondi RSL, nothing spectacular about the venue, except for the view, cheap beers too. You get a mountain of food for your $7.

If you want to eat down by the Rocks then you're going to pay for the privlege, but otherwise that thread I linked to above has some great suggestions. I'd say your son will love Hurricane's too MASSIVE racks of ribs.

vecta

Being that you are both divers, you will find the Manly Aquarium Shark Dive very boring. At least I did anyway, and when I did this dive a few years back. You don't actually swim with the sharks, but you walk around the tank in a completely controlled environment. The sharks swim around the same route in the tank all day and night, much like robots.

I'm not even a diver and I would certainly not recommend this "dive" when in Sydney.

ozzie

I was there on Wednesday too :-)

Yo-u can really find very good food bargains in Sydney. It's not hard to get a steak for $10 and it's normally a pretty good one. There's even a few pubs in the CBD that do that. If you want to go top end, then yes it is expensive but then so is everywhere else.

Take a look at the thread Ben linked to. For cheaper eats, there's plenty of cheap asian annd italian places around. The quality of food in Sydney is excellent too. If a place looks cheap, it's very rare that the food is bad.

For something alittle more expensive places like Wagamama do 2 course for $20 which can hardly be called expensive.

spyder2114

I have to agree with you and say I feel much better about this.
Can't wait!

Thanks to everyone again.

RadioGirl

I agree that you can find less-expensive places to eat in Sydney, and I don't want to scare the OP away. But when I used to go back to the US, I was always surprised at how low the restaurant prices seemed. It was particularly noticeable in beverages or desserts which just seemed really low.

Obviously the exchange rate affects this, although at the moment the Aussie and US dollar are pretty close. The other thing to bear in mind if the prices seem higher here is that you don't need to tip, so the overall cost of the meal is less than what you would pay for the same bill in the US.

I agree with bensyd and ozzie that the cheaper places usually have very good food.

spyder2114

I've spent some time researching the beaches and would like your recommendations. We aren't looking for anything fancy but clean decent and reasonably priced would be great.

ozzie

Manly's probably the best for you if you need to get back to North Ryde quickly. Although just about anywhere in Sydney is less than 2 hours drive. I'm no manly expert but I think there are a couple of hotels there. I'm not great on the northern beaches so maybe some others can give a recommendation ?

At Bondi there's the Swiss Grand hotel which is right on the beach and has a great view. If you are looking for something cheaper there is a YHA and quite a few backpackers in Bondi where you could get a private room....

Coogee beach (a few beaches down from Bondi) has a crowne plaza which again is right on the beach and has great views.

spyder2114

So would you recommend getting the Smartvisit Card or is there something better? If you recommend the Smartvisit Card should we go with the Transport option as well? We probably won't be renting a car and will be relying on Public Transportation. Would we be better to wing it and pay as we go for transport? Does it include enough of the system to get about anywhere with the occassional taxi ride?

Unless I am missing something the card looks like a great deal if we only 4-5 things we plan on.

Thoughts please.