An excellent institution, which sometimes confuses European visitors. The acronym means "bring your own", i.e. alcohol when you dine at a restaurant.

Formerly almost ubiquitous, the practice is becoming less common - some say even dying out - no doubt to the pleasure of many Sydney restaurateurs.

It makes dining far more affordable than when you have to include the restaurant's alcohol mark-up, which is usually greater than on anything else you consume.

It also means you can occasionally splash out on a very nice bottle - of Hunter Valley Semillon, say - to accompany a spread of Sydney seafood without worrying about your starving bank account.

BYO is more common at medium range and casual restaurants.

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Some visitors to Sydney would prefer to see the city from the Harbour Bridge for free, along the public walkway, but the Bridgeclimb tour takes you much - MUCH - higher.

The ascent right up to the aviation light, at the apex, is surely as good as an exposure treatment for vertigo as it is for the views. I had forgotten, or put out of mind, my fear of heights, and although much of the climb was, for me, dominated by mortal terror, I also could not ignore the vista.

The view from the top gives you a nice sense of the layout of some of the beaches in Sydney as well as how the whole city gradually expanded outwards from the harbour.

The fainthearted might think twice about the climb, although the organisers have obviously made safety a primary concern.

Bridgeclimb:
5 Cumberland St, The Rocks
61 2 9255 8210

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Some British visitors to Australia are put off indulging in one of its greatest attractions, swimming in the sea, for exaggerated fear of the beasties lurking therein.

A supervised dive at the Oceanworld aquarium in Manly might prove an antidote to such an aversion. The big sharks here, the Grey Nurses, are, like the rest of the swimming displays - among them enormous, velvety black rays and constantly curious little Dog Sharks - too well fed to consider nibbling on you. But even were that not the case, the jaws of the Grey Nurses are, despite their fearsome appearance, quite the wrong shape to make lunch of one of your body parts.

Sharks should probably fear humans at least as much as the reverse: many of them, such as the Grey Nurses, have become endangered due to fishing and other human activities. You can also simply view the aquarium animals through the glass.

Oceanworld Manly:
West Esplanade, Manly
+61 2 9949 7950

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Two of the best cafes in Sydney? Others would, no doubt, nominate their own favourites, but the espressos at these two establishments, located over the road from each other on Challis Avenue, in Potts Point, would be hard to beat: I have rarely had better even in Italy.

Spring Espresso perhaps has the edge with the intricate, leaf-like pattern its barristas skillfully etch on the cappuccinos they serve up. Both cafes do delicious eggs benedict, that Sydney breakfast institution.

Diners are mainly residents of the wealthy surrounding suburb of Potts Point; they are interesting enough to observe in themselves, but the main draws are the food, the coffee and the location. Potts Point is only a leafy, five-minute stroll away from Woolloomooloo Bay, on the harbour.

Spring Espresso:
65 Macleay St, Potts Point
+61 2 9331 0191
Fratelli Paradiso:
12-16 Challis Ave, Potts Point
+61 9357 1744

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At at time when British museums are increasingly bowing to the cult of "accessibility", with its concomitant tendency to infantilise visitors, I liked the burst of poetry in one of the captions at the Australian National Maritime Museum: “Surfing is a look, an ideology, a spiritual quest, an adrenalin rush, a cult of cool, a burst of rage, even a religion.”

Sydney is, perhaps pre-eminently, a maritime city, as the museum quite convincingly proves. There are displays on the history of surfing, swimming apparel and shipping: the story of the wreck of the Batavia in the 17th century (although actually off the western Australian coast) is particularly gripping, not to say chilling. A whole section is devoted to the enduring Aboriginal relationship with the water.

The museum design is pleasingly open and spacious; indeed, the building is meant to resemble a ship.

2 Murray Street, Darling Harbour
+61 2 9298 3777
open daily
free admission

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