Australia / Sydney / 31 Aug – 4 Sep 2026

Sydney, after the race

Five days of the city you actually get to enjoy once your legs stop mattering: a recovery dinner that underdelivered, a library that overdelivered, a beach walk, a musical, a zoo, and the best meal of the trip.

Sydney
Bondi & Tamarama
Taronga Zoo
Sydney Fish Market
Food-heavy

The race was the reason for the trip. This chapter is the part I would repeat. It is also where every good meal happened, which is not a coincidence — you eat differently when nothing depends on your legs tomorrow.

A whole spiny sea urchin opened and held up over the water at Sydney Fish Market — The trip peaked standing up, outdoors, holding this. No restaurant beat it.

Sydney is a much better city when you are not saving your legs for something.

The first day after was mostly a slow shuffle between coffee and food, and a return to the Opera House to take the photograph I had been too destroyed to take the day before.

After that the days find a rhythm: a coffee, one proper thing, one long walk, one dinner. Three things in a day turned out to be the correct number of things when you have already been in a city for a week.

31 Aug

Recovery day

The medal photograph I was too wrecked to take yesterday.

1 Sep

The full tourist day

A library I went into for five minutes and did not.

2 Sep

Bondi and a lion

A beach day and a musical, in the same twelve hours.

3 Sep

Zoo day

A short day, on purpose, with the skyline behind the giraffes.

4 Sep

Sydney Fish Market

The best meal of the trip, and it wasn’t a restaurant.

There is a directness to eating seafood that recently was in water nearby. No technique between you and it, nothing to hide behind.
Sydney Fish Market, 4 September

31 Aug

High expectations, medium Thai food, and then a very good bar

The morning was coffee and toasties and moving slowly. The afternoon was going back to the Opera House to take the photograph. The evening was the one genuine disappointment of the week, followed by the best hour of it.

Coffee bar with terrazzo counter and a barista working at the machines — Standing at a counter the morning after a marathon is its own small achievement.

Two toasted sandwiches on plates at a wooden table — Nothing clever. Bread, cheese, salt. Exactly the correct food for the day after.

Takeaway tray of sliced steak with chimichurri and charred broccolini — A tray of protein and green things, eaten with the enthusiasm of someone whose body had opinions.

Hand holding a Sydney Marathon medal up in front of the Opera House sails — The obligatory one. I had earned the right to be this predictable.

Plate of stir-fried pork with green chillies on a banana leaf — Doo Dee Paidang. Genuinely fine, just not the thing I had talked myself into on the walk over. That gap is worth naming, because the food itself did nothing wrong.

Unmarked dark doorway numbered 49 with an intercom panel at night — Saga Bar fixed the evening. If you only do one night out in Sydney, this is the one I would repeat.

1 Sep

Coffee, a library I didn’t expect to like, and the Opera House

Started at Stitch Coffee — cold brew, a piccolo, egg tarts. Then Green Square Library, which is the surprise of the trip. Up the Sydney Tower Eye, lunch at the Fortune Alley food court, dessert at Freo, then the harbour.

Stitch Coffee shopfront with pink bench seating outside — Open early, which on a tourist day matters more than anything on the menu.

Latte with rosetta art, iced coffee and two egg tarts on a tray — The egg tarts here did what the pastries two days earlier hadn’t.

Wall of shelves filled with brightly coloured book spines arranged by colour — Green Square Library. The first-floor reading room has these shelves and I went in for five minutes and stayed considerably longer.

View over Sydney rooftops and towers from the Sydney Tower Eye observation deck — Worth doing once. From up here the course I had run looks reasonable, which it was not.

Cup of dark chocolate gelato held in front of a neon-lit gelato counter — Freo for dessert. A trip where you can eat gelato as a structural element of the afternoon is a good trip.

Circular Quay with ferries and the Harbour Bridge in the afternoon sun — Circular Quay in the late afternoon, which is when it stops being a transport interchange and starts being the photograph.

Sitting on the steps opposite the Opera House in afternoon sunlight — The Opera House for the photographs everybody takes, which are worth taking anyway.

Wide lawn and large spreading tree in the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney — Back through the Royal Botanic Garden out to Macquarie Point — the same stretch I had run on the shakeout, at a much more reasonable pace.

Platter of nigiri including sea urchin, salmon roe and tuna on a blue plate — Dinner at Mikazuki around half seven. We had meant to finish the day at Observatory Hill and skipped it, because forcing one more viewpoint into a day that already works is how you end up enjoying none of it.

2 Sep

A beach day, then a musical, in the same twelve hours

Coffee at Eksentrik, then the bus to Bondi. Saw the beach and the Icebergs from a distance rather than up close — a decision I would defend, since the walk along to Tamarama is the better part anyway.

Bondi Beach seen from the grass above, with sand and blue water beyond — Bondi on a clear September morning, before the crowd arrives to make it a different place.

Bondi Icebergs ocean pool seen from the clifftop path — The Icebergs from the path above rather than up close — a decision I would defend, since the walk along to Tamarama is the better part anyway.

Rocky coastline and turquoise water on the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk — This stretch is the actual reason to go to Bondi, and almost nobody photographs it instead of the beach.

Acai bowl topped with banana, berries and chocolate sauce held up on the coastal path — About an hour lying on the sand at Tamarama doing nothing, with this as the excuse for stopping.

Wagyu rice bowl with sliced beef, egg yolk and pickles on a tray at DOPA — DOPA: the second-best thing I ate on this trip. Beef that was properly juicy and tender, and sauces and condiments doing real work rather than sitting there.

Illuminated Lion King lion mask artwork in a theatre foyer — The Lion King at seven. Going straight from a beach walk to a theatre is a very specific kind of holiday luxury.

Plate of beef noodles with Chinese broccoli at a late-night restaurant table — A late Thai dinner at Krung afterwards, at the hour when a city sorts itself into the people who are still hungry.

3 Sep

A short day, on purpose

Bohaus Coffee just before one, Taronga Zoo at half two, dinner at MuMu at six. Three things in a day is the correct number of things when you have already been in a city for a week.

Giraffe standing in its enclosure at Taronga Zoo with the Sydney skyline and harbour behind — Taronga’s whole argument in one frame: a giraffe, and the city it is somehow standing in front of.

Kangaroo lying on its side in the sun on dry ground — Doing exactly what I wanted to be doing four days after a marathon.

Koala asleep in the fork of a tree branch — Asleep, as advertised. Nobody should be disappointed by this; it is the entire brand.

Takeaway coffee cup branded Bohaus held in front of the cafe entrance — Bohaus just before one, which is a late start and the right one.

Plate of char-fried flat noodles with lime and banana leaf at MuMu — Dinner at MuMu at six. The wok char on this was the best of the three Thai meals of the trip.

4 Sep

The best meal of the trip, and it wasn’t a restaurant

Sydney Fish Market, which is where the trip peaked. Dim sum at TinTin first, then the actual point: oysters, sea urchin, caviar, salmon sashimi, prawns.

Plate of freshly shucked oysters on ice with a lemon wedge — The oysters and the sea urchin were the standouts, and they are the reason this and not any of the sit-down dinners is the meal I would come back for.

Steamer basket of black squid-ink dumplings shaped like small parcels — Dim sum at TinTin first, which was good and which I have already half forgotten, because of what came next.

Market counter display of prawns, lobsters and shellfish on ice with price tags — You order by pointing, which removes every layer of ceremony between wanting a thing and eating it.

Tray of sliced salmon sashimi held up beside the water — Eaten on the deck outside, over the water it came out of. There is no version of this that a dining room improves.

Best for

Anyone who would rather stand up and eat something excellent than sit down and eat something impressive. Go hungry and bring cash-level decisiveness; the counters move fast.

What didn’t work

Nothing at the market, and I want to be specific about why I am confident: I ate five separate things across two hours and the only thing I would change is having eaten the dim sum first and arrived less hungry.