Dwayne: The Rocks

This next suburb is a tourist hotspot that I didn't actually realise is technically a suburb. Ladies and gentlemen, here's

The Rocks

The Rocks is best accessed from the city's Circular Quay. Here, you can get in by bus, ferry, train or tram,

or cruise ship. 

The suburb's border starts immediately west of the ferry wharves, meaning you get to come into the suburb with a harbour view. 

Now, The Rocks is a well-travelled hotspot in Sydney CBD with lots of historic places to see. I'm neither a historian nor a tour guide, so if you're expecting a detailed guide book, or anything historic resembling information from this blog post, you're going to be disappointed. 

Instead, as usual, I present to you my stroll through this unique area.

Just by the Harbour is the first point of interest, the Museum of Contemporary Art. It has this old building, 

and this new building, and it's free to enter. Having been here a few times, and having enough to see in this suburb without adding in an entire art museum, I chose not to head in today, but it is worth calling out that they have an outdoor cafe on the roof with great views of the harbour - not a bad place to take your overseas guests. 

Anyway, past the MCA is the aforementioned cruise terminal. You do see the immense cities-on-the-sea docked here sometimes (although not much since somebody ate a bat a couple years ago) and I imagine it must be awesome coming into Sydney for the first time this way. 

Here's one of the many historic houses in The Rocks. 

Here's another, apparently sailors live here. 

And here are some more. 

I headed up these stairs to get to the main "Rocksy" bit of The Rocks. 

Yay.

As already mentioned, The Rocks is a heavily touristed area due to its historic vibe.  

This means plenty of foot traffic on a weekend like today, 

as well as lots of walking streets and alleys to get lost in. 

I started down this one, 

where approximately 13,000 people were queued up for Pancakes on the Rocks.

I didn't join that crowd (not that I don't enjoy a bit of Panckes on the Rocks), and instead continued past, 

soon finding myself in some outdoor markets. 

This seems to be the overspill from the weekend Rocks Markets,

and after stopping to look at these triplets, 

I figured I'd head in,

before remembering that I don't really like these kinds of markets, having no need for artisanal soaps, humourous coasters and wood-carved doodads,

and so I mostly just strolled on by. 

At the end of the markets is this pub where you can enjoy a beer and some live folk music, 

as well as some food stalls.

Notably, this paella stand looked legit, although I didn't try it today, unfortunately, it still being a little bit early for lunch. 

and the base of the old coathanger, where this suburb's border is. 

But I wasn't quite ready to leave The Rocks yet, so I headed up these stairs, 

looping back along into the suburb. 

Did you know that on the base leading up to the Harbour Bridge is this dilapidated looking rusty concrete wall with people inside getting ready to do the bridge climb? (If you zoom in you might see some of the blue jump-suited folks). 

From here, I carried on up this less-visited piece of The Rocks, 

looking through this one construction window, 

and following this sign to where I was trying to get to. 

That sign turned out to be a lie, 

and I instead had to go this way,

to reach these funky stairs.

If you take those stairs, you just might get to this door to nowhere. 

Even better though is that you may end up at Foundation Park. Here's that park as visible through the doors. 

As you can see, Foundation Park is a funky multi-layer park. 

I don't know why it's here, but it's up and down nature makes for some interesting photos. 

And if you follow it all the way through, you end up back here. 

As such, I passed back through the markets, 

(how is there always a gozleme stand at these things?) 

to finally enter my next suburb. 

The Rocks: On the tourist trail for good reason.