Respite: Pyrmont

Strap yourself in, because this next Inner City suburb is a big-un.

Pyrmont

Pyrmont is a just-outside-of-the-CBD suburb sitting just north of Ultimo. My journey through the suburb started on this completely arbitrary street.

Immediately, Pyrmont began its tricks, demoing converted industrial buildings of the past, 

and perhaps the coolest eclectic mix of housing options I've run into while exploring this city of ours. 

With those good first impressions, I continued on, urged by more old buildings and a fantasticly blue summer's sky,

mixed in with the newer apartments and city towers not too far away. 

Sprinkled along my stroll were some standard-spec terraces,

happening brunch spots, 

a less-happening-but-still-kind-of-happening dumpling spot,

and a mysterious VIP door. 

This led me to the very-European feeling town square, also known as Union Street.

Here, there is an illegal amount of gorgeous heritage,

Pyrmont's really upping its game. 

And just across the road from here - rather contrastingly - is perhaps Pyrmont's most visited location,

of course,

I'm talking about The Star,

Sydney's second largest casino, after Rooty Hill RSL. [citation needed]

After losing the keys to my Aston Martin on a poker table to some English guy, I continued on past the casino to see what else this lovely-so-far suburb has to offer. 

This led to what I'm going to call Pyrmont's wharf district. Here, as well as the obligatory glistening water of the harbour,

there are, unsurprisingly, wharves.

You can take a boat here if you want to travel in style, 

or you can just stroll through the surprising greenspace,

quiet streets,

and recycled water factory(?)

to get to more converted industrial blocks,

including what is apparently the Sydney Morning Herald office. Neat. 

The next wharf in the collection was Jones Bay Wharf. 

Here, you can also arrive by boat should you choose,

but you can also enjoy a very fine wedding reception. (Fun fact, that crowd of people in the background is actually the wedding that was recently in the news for racking up a cool $21k in fines due to having a bunch of Northern Beachers present). 

Lawlessness and banditry aside, this wharf is actually very cool, with its Barangar-views,

industrial-chic innards,

and out-ards. 

At this point, it was time for lunch. Luckily, a small cafe has set up shop on the wharf.

In my hunger and professionalism, I didn't catch the name of the place. But if you're in the neighbourhood, it's this one. 

The wonderful summer weather suggested that I go for the fish and chips which were tasty but not life changing.

Mrs Completing Sydney who I neglected to mention up until this very moment had this very zingy haloumi salad. 

After lunch, we (I now have to write we instead of I) continued through the wharf district, 

to a far more recreational wharf, 

featuring these guys,

a platform to recreate that one Titanic scene,

and this apparent art piece,

which is actually super cool because it waves about.

Unfortunately, sculpture interference is prohibited. Bummer.

They also have this neat tap thing,

and a cactus putting its hands up.

Sadly, it was now time to depart the wharf district,

but not Pyrmont, which still had plenty to offer. 

Starting with the awesome Pirrama Park - a huge piece of waterside greenspace,

with killer views all around,

a huge playground,

and a long walking path along the water, which we followed. 

As an aside, if any one year olds are reading this, you've lost your rashie here. 

Anyway.

We followed the path along the water,

past some apartments' snazzy frontyards, 

and the Anzac Bridge up ahead. 

Interestingly, this spot once belonged to the CSL sugar company. 

It's much nicer now though.

Eventually, the waterside path ended,

through some more tremendous greenspace,

and I was led streetside. 

This next section is sort of the butt of Pyrmont. I would have ended things here, but there is one more point of interest to check out before calling it a day. This took me under the Anzac Bridge,

past this spaghetti ramp,

and daycare where presumably the toddlers pretend to be snowmen and Kenny from South Park, respectively. 

Also in the near distance is the Channel 10 building. Fun fact, I went to that building a couple of years ago to be in the live studio audience of an extremely short lived show (i.e. I think they only made one episode) called Trial by Kyle, whereby Kyle Sandilands is Judge Judy. Here I had the opportunity to watch such landmark legal cases as a young adult and her mum fighting for custody of a girl's puppy, and a botched boob job. It was quality programming. In this video you can see my dumb face in the audience at around 1 minute 4 seconds in. 

Anyway, none of that is the reason I was here. 

Instead, I was here to check out the Sydney Fish Markets.

After risking our lives crossing the car park,

we headed inside. 

The fish market, as you may expect, is a place you can get seafood. 

They have a lot of it here. 

But it was quite crowded inside and - you know - Covid, so we skedaddled back outside,

where we could maintain a two pelican distance from everyone else.

And with that, we said goodbye to both the fish markets and the lovely urban suburb of Pyrmont. 

Pyrmont: I told you this was a big one.