Botanic Gardens Highlights
We encourage you to walk on the grass, touch the trees, smell the flowers and talk to the birds.
The Management, Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney
The Royal Botanic Gardens is a sanctuary in the centre of the city. So it’s little wonder that it’s one of Sydney’s most popular tourist attractions.
With so much to see and do it’s hard to know where to start. If you’re planning a visit, here are my top ten ways to make the most of your visit.
Take a seat
Or have a lie down on the lawn.
There are plenty of pretty places to sit and enjoy the surrounds in the company of friends or a good book.
The Herb Garden is a sunny, aromatic spot with plenty of bench seating.
The Rose Garden is filled with colour from September to May and the magnificent old sandstone pavilion is a great place to sit year round.
Take an organised tour
The Gardens hosts free guided walks Monday to Friday at 10:30am and 1pm.
The Aboriginal Heritage Tour* is led by an Aboriginal guide and explores traditional plant uses, culture and artefacts and includes the tasting of some bush foods.
Take a self-guided tour
If you’d prefer to wonder about on your own among the figs and the foliage, the Interactive Map will help guide your experience.
For a non-tech way to wander and learn, The Little Book of Walks is available in the Garden Shop. It features five self-guided walks especially for visitors who would like to see the sights at their leisure.
Watch the birds
No, I mean it, watch the birds! Especially the Ibis. If you have food they’ll find you and might even try to take it out of your hands. But despite their lack of manners I think they’re fascinating to watch as are the many birds that congregate around the ponds and flit between the trees.
Look out for cormorants, herons, swamphens and ducks as well as kookaburras, currawongs, cuckoos and cockatoos. If your’e lucky you may even see a powerful owl.
Visit the Calyx
The Calyx* is an integrated mix of indoor and outdoor areas and boasts the largest green wall in the southern hemisphere. Each year or so the themed displays within are changed.
The Current display, Alchemy of a Rainforest is open 10am - 4pm daily.
The Calyx also has a cafe and education space and can be hired out for private events.
*The Calyx hosts private events regularly, so check here to be sure it’s open before you go.
Absorb the history
At 202 years of age, the Botanic Gardens are the oldest of their kind in Australia. And before that, the area hosted the first farm for settlers in the early days of the colony.
And before that? Well for thousands of years before that this was home to the Gadigal people, and the area was one of the sites of first contact between the locals and the Europeans in the late 1700s. The First Encounters Walk tells the history of this contact right up to the present day. It invites you to walk back through time and experience the gardens from an Aboriginal perspective.
To find out more about the garden’s modern history, check out the blog series, Digging Into our History which explores the garden’s evolution though the 1800, 1900s to today.
Enjoy the view
What can I say?
The Botanic Gardens is set on 29 hectares of prime real estate and views don’t get any better than this.
It’s no secret why thousands flock here in the summer to take in the Open Air Cinema or Opera on the Harbour.
Looking for that perfect Sydney shot? This is a good place to start. Sydney harbour has many moods and you can see them all from here.
Visit Government House Gardens
The House is open for tours on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays only but you can visit the gardens every day between 10 am and 4pm.
I think this is one of Sydney;’s better kept secrets. Maybe it’s the imposing gates at the entrance but when I visited the gardens recently on a weekday I felt like had the whole place to myself. There were a few others wondering in and out but the crowds were largely confined to the other side of the fence and I could wonder at my leisure.
It’s a pretty garden, with level lawns and plenty of seating. Among the many mature trees look out for the magnificent fig which sits close to the house and was planted at the same time the house was built.
Pick up a gift
for yourself or a friend. The Gardens Shop has a great range of Australian and botanical themed gifts and a wonderful selection of books. You can pick up a jar of honey collected from the Garden’s own hives, or a packet of seeds for a living reminder of your visit.
The Growing Friends Nursery sells a range of range of native and exotic, rare, hard-to-find and endangered plants.
Eat & Drink
Coffee or cocktails, cake or charcuterie, there are plenty of options here.
Casual dining and drinking options include the Busby’s Bar, Farmcove Eatery, The Terrace Eatery or Piccolo Me.
For a special occasion and more formal setting, try the newly revamped (and rebranded) restaurants, Botanic House or Terrace on the Domain
* Fees apply