Sydney has always enjoyed a water-centric reputation. The Australian city’s grand harbour, surrounded by architectural icons and a hub of bars and restaurants that ride on the coattails of the natural beauty, has long stood out as an engaging focal point.

In recent years, the appeal of the glorious foreshore has been further enhanced by the expansion and upgrade of wharves and harbour side locations into usable venues. Areas like Woolloomooloo and Darling Harbour, that once suffered as social wastelands once their industrial purpose had expired, are now sophisticated destinations all a flurry with dual waves of recreational and residential activity.

One of the major contributions to Sydney’s makeover has been the resurrection of the city’s remaining wharves at Woolloomooloo and Walsh Bay. It wouldn’t be fair to their history to suggest that these wharves weren’t a vital part of the city prior to their conversions into what people who like pine coladas and eating McDonalds at 4am might call ‘party central’.

The row of wharves at the harbour side suburb of Walsh Bay originally materialised to tend to the storage needs of the port of Sydney. It was a practical anti-plague measure in the 1800s with no expectation of what would one day be its glamorous evolution. The area was subject to dramatic developments between 1999 and 2005 and now that it’s 2007 there are more Bentleys than boxes at Walsh Bay and that’s the way it’s going to stay. The list is long: wharves 6 and 7 have been devoted to a swanky residential development, wharves 4 and 5 have stuck with their involvement in the arts playing host to the Sydney Theatre Company, Sydney Dance Company and Bangarra Dance Theatre, Ottoman restaurant made the most of pier two and Pier one is now The Sebel Pier One, a hotel with arresting harbour views in a unique building. ‘It’s amazing they didn’t do it sooner,’ says a resident of Walsh Bay, ‘It’s exactly what Sydney needed and really brings the feel of the city right up to the water.’ More fanfare is planned at the site with rumours of cultural centres and the like, but it’s one plank at a time.

Woolloomooloo wharf, or the Finger Wharf, is perhaps best known for its most famous resident. He looks good in Roman attire circa 180 AD, has masqueraded as a whistleblower, a boxer and an unlikely mathematical genius and in real life he wears sweat pants, goes by the name of Russell Crowe and lives in the $14 million penthouse at the tip of the wharf. As well as this intermittently dashing actor’s Oscar, Woolloomooloo wharf contains an appealingly long line of fashionable restaurants like Otto, China Doll and Aki’s with a knockout location. The wharf, which at 400 metres long and almost 64 metres wide is the southern hemisphere’s largest timber wharf, reached its current stage of metamorphosis in 1999. Many years ago the site handled the nation’s wool exports and served as a sending-off point for the ANZACs setting sail for combat in Gallipoli. By the 1980s the site had been rendered irrelevant by more recent facilities and the major refurbishment converted a disused but charming heritage wharf into a social and gastronomic Mecca.

Darling Harbour is another harbour-side spot with more to offer to passers by in recent years. In the mid-1970s it was pretty much derelict and by the 1980s the state’s Premier had decided to ‘return it to the people of Sydney.’ The Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, the first construction to kick off the new development, housed some high-profile meetings at the 2007 APEC summit and is the place to see anything in the vein of a hair expo, judo tournament or a self-help book launch. There is also a reliable collection of outdoor restaurants that are enjoyed by families and bars with less innocent patrons. Cockle Bay and King St. wharf are offshoots of Darling Harbour and unless there’s a local there to tell you otherwise you won’t really notice the distinction. Cockle Bay is best known for the huge nightclub Home and King St. wharf is a billion-dollar complex populated by busy restaurants and bars.

Venturing beyond the water’s edge, the little islands seemingly stranded in the harbour can also be worth a look. Cockatoo Island is probably the most accessible and keen to please. The on-time dockyard held its inaugural music festival in 2005 attracting over 20,000 visitors and every weekend the Harbour Trust takes tours to the island to satisfy those interested in early colonial history. If you’re after more light-hearted entertainment than a tour, which isn’t everyone’s dream moment, you’ll have to wait a while. The Harbour Trust has a ‘vision’ to re-appropriate the island for commercial and community use with an emphasis on cultural events, but this vision is yet to graduate from the lengthy conceptual stage.

Garden Island is another landmark that’s recently opened for business. In 2002 it permanently opened its doors to the public allowing access to the northern half of the island with its remnants of sandstone forts, rock carvings best addressed as colonial graffiti and other interesting relics.

More than ever before, Sydney has reached beyond the streets to incorporate the glorious feeling of the harbour into city living.