Day tripping – share your favourite destinations with us

With this edition of City Extra, we’re inviting our guests to share your favourite road trips – places you’ve enjoyed in your Toyota and destinations you’d recommend.

The distance can be long or short.

Here’s one we prepared earlier:

A COASTAL EXPERIENCE 11 KMS FROM THE SYDNEY CBD.

WHAT: The North Head Manly Sanctuary, recently reopened after devastating bushfires offers amazing glimpses into Sydney’s quarantine past, walking tracks, guided tours of our early defences, sensational coastal and city views and even if you’re lucky the opportunity for whale watching.

Home to the Gayamagal people, the headland is a must see for all Sydneysiders. Post-pandemic, it’s thought provoking to stand in an ancient coastal cemetery built for the 1881 smallpox epidemic.

WHERE: Just 11kms from the Sydney CBD, over the Spit Bridge to Manly, then up Darley Road past the glorious gothic St. Patrick’s College, through stone archways and onto the North Head Scenic Drive. Parking is in North Fort car Park.

EATING: The licensed Bella Vista Café is perched on the entrance to the car park (203/33 North Head Scenic Drive), open for breakfast, lunch and morning and afternoon teas. We love the chunky Berkelo sourdough ($8) and chose the home-made gnocchi with WA Shark Bay swimmer crab ($35).

ON THE WAY HOME: Drop into Clontarf Beach, Sandy Bay Road, Clontarf for a kid-friendly swim in a netted harbor pool. If you’re adventurous you can take the single track cliff walk 800 metres around to secluded Castle Rock beach, named naturally for the rock which looks like…… Castle Rock boasts it has no lifeguards, no shops, no water, no toilets –just a lovely quiet beach.