Chinese Garden of Friendship – Sydney

My friend spontaneously popped down to Sydney to watch the Swans game a few weekends back and so we took hold of this chance to catch up and do some sightseeing. After living in Sydney for nearly 7 years I still manage to find things to do. Although it’s getting harder. Visiting friends certainly help with finding new activities to do. We walked past the Chinese Garden of Friendship while trying to look for something to do and decided to take a look.

Chinese Garden of Friendship

Tucked away in Darling Harbour is a relatively small entrance. Other than surrounding walls it’s not obvious that there is a giant garden in the middle of the city unless you know its there. The privacy of the garden with the tall walls and sunken level means that you can escape the city without even leaving the CBD.  Although you can still see parts of the city through the trees.

The garden was designed by Guangzhou, Sydney’s Chinese sister city and was opened in 1988 as part of Sydney’s Bicentennial celebration.  Entry is pretty cheap at $6 each and I believe family discounts are also available. While there are some stairs around overall the gardens are pretty accessible.

The garden features a beautiful mix of flowering trees, a giant pond and wildlife. Scattered around are small stones each one labelled with a different Chinese Zodiac sign. It was great fun trying to find out Zodiac sign.

Fauna and Flora

The garden animals present in the garden surprised me slightly. I had expected to see birds and some fish. There heaps of giant koi swimming around the pond and the classic Sydney birds. However, I didn’t expect to see the water dragon (I think that is what the guide said they were called). The water dragons were mostly spotted just chilling on the rocks near the water. They can swim quite well and we spotted some just sitting in the middle of the pond. The water dragons can move very quickly as my partner found out the hard way when one decided to give chase.

We also spotted a turtle sitting in the middle of the pond on a rock. The variety of animals really added to the experience of the garden and it was great fun trying to spot them all.

There was also a huge variety of plants that worked really well in the garden including scrubs, trees, potted plants and flowers. All of the elements worked well together creating a harmonious garden.

Overall

I can’t believe it took me nearly 7 years to visit. It’s such a tranquil place. If I worked close to the garden I would seriously consider getting the yearly membership so that I could walk through the garden on my lunch break. Overall I think we took about an hour or so to explore the whole garden but I’m sure you could quite easily spend even longer there. You can also rush through if you’re short on time. I highly recommend checking out the garden!

For more Sydney adventures check out my other posts: Sydney Fish Market or Sydney Sculptures by the Sea – 2018