Macquarie University Sports and Aquatic Centre…read more Like many things at Macquarie University, it's sporting and athletics complex has been recently renovated. Although universally refered to as «the gym» by students, the Macquarie University Sports and Aquatic Centre is actually so much more. The complex's facilities are extremely impressive; no matter what time of day or night you find yourself there, you rarely need to wait to use your chosen piece of equipment; a pleasant contrast to many gyms around the 6pm mark. The centre also offers its members free use of its multiple squash, tennis, basketball and netball courts, as well as its indoor and outdoor pools. Swimming lessons for all ages are available here, as well as squads and the ability to leisurely push yourself up and down the pool for as long as humanely possible. The cafe attached to the gym is widely considered to produce the best coffee on campus, and - bonus! - there's never a line. In case you've committed the rookie error of coming for a swim and forgotten your swimmers, the Sports and Aquatic Centre stocks a full range of swimming costumes and goggles, plus a formidable range of other affiliated gym gear. Plus, there is a carpark with two hours of free parking - happy days! The centrex also has an impressive range of classes, at a range of times deeply convenient to uni students on campus for the day. Wanna try Tai Chi? Now's your chance! Pilates? Body Attack? Body Pump? Spin? All the old favourites - plus some newcomers on the gym class scene, the most obvious being Zumba - are avaiable. Plus, they come at student (and working-professional, obviously) friendly prices; for the non-member, classes are only $10 a pop! Compare that with the Fitness First's of the world.... If team sport is your thing, then you're also covered; the Sports and Aquatic Centre's mind blowingly popular social netball is offered three nights per week, while social touch football and soccer are on twice weekly. For the less traditional, you can partake in weekly competitive badminton. (I'm not joking). The centre's staff are also always friendly and courteous, the bathrooms clean and the lockers available. Plus, the value is astonishingly good. A membership with the Sports and Aquatic Centre feautres no lock-in contract, no joining fee and a getting-started session with a personal trainer. Students, staff and alumni of Macquarie University are lucky to receive a discounted rate, but others will still find this membership won't break the bank!

It's as good as Fitness First, but cheaper. A lot cheaper, especially if you're a Macquarie…read morestudent. There's a wide choice of group fitness classes with knowledgeable instructors. Gym is well-equipped with fairly new weights & cardio equipments. Other facilities include outdoor & indoor pools, squash courts, basketball / badminton courts.

Living in the inner west all my life in the Strathfield area, I have always found it hard to find a…read morelocal basketball court to play on, whether it be because the rings are constantly left as netball rings (Strathfield park) or because the rings and courts aren't particularly well kept or they are just too overcrowded or they have very unfriendly hours of use because of nearby residents. This gem of a court is small, but because it's not surrounded by residents you can play at all ours of the day. It has great upkeep of the court and the ring, and it is surrounded by playgrounds and has a lovely landscape surrounding it as it is part of bicentennial park!

Want to let your imagination off the leash?…read more Try walking into a brand new $15million basketball stadium on the verge of completion. The banners, the logos, the stickers, the decals are all new and sparkling. The boards are fresh, clean, begging for a scuff. The hoops sit still and silent, the promise of a new season hangs in the pregnant air. This is what it was like visiting the new Brydens Stadium pre-season. In my head I was Muggsy Bogues, all five foot nothing of him, bustling down the paint and finishing with a fadeaway jumper. Swish baby. In your face. Pouring Gatorade on the coach, soaking his clipboard full of notes. #GoFlames!

Got an invite for a Yelp Elite event and it would be my first. In addition, it would be another…read morefirst being to this stadium as well as a first basketball game! It's a first with 3 strikes! Wooo Great atmosphere, brand spanking new sparkly stadium and really enjoyed cheering on the Sydney Uni Flames. Got to meet a few awesome people who made me feel welcome. I'm totally digging this Yelp family thing :) Overall a GREAT night and looking forward to future events with other Yelpers! Bring it on!

This small park is set in bushland. It offers playground equipment and swings for littlies, BBQ…read morefacilities and some tables & benches. There is a council owned tennis court in the precinct too. I must have driven past the end of the street a zillion times, but being on foot this morning I wandered across the road & enjoyed the shade & coolness that this tiny piece of bushland offered.

Dogs! Yes: dogs!…read more Every afternoon around 5pm Willoughby's dog owners converge on the park for a no-leash, multi-pawed, meaty-tongued extravaganza, a mad panting carnival full of black gums, wild eyes and reckless, relentless bum sniffing. This is humanity at its finest: dog owners are an honest, convivial bunch, and they give great chat. This review could also have read: This is the leafy green heart and soul of suburban Willoughby, a three-tiered recreational park enclosed by tall gum trees wreathed with kookaburras and magpies, encircled by winding walkways and dotted with kids playgrounds. It didn't though. I own a (fat) pug, so the dog angle was far more appealing.

This really is a great park. Full of happy children in the playground!…read more Most of the park is lovely and well maintained. But unfortunately the playground isn't. The large slide has worn and has been repaired with silicon which has begun to peel out, then someone has put duct tape over the top which obviously didn't work. There is also a large hole in the tunnel which presents a tripping hazard. Outside the fenced in area there is a merry-go-round which is at ground level so close supervision is required for young children to ensure they don't accidentally wander onto it. Despite some maintenance issues it is a great park with lots of inclusions and well thought out with equipment to aid in development, both physical and sensory.

Sydney has a lot of beautiful parks, but the expansive Callan Park has to be one of my favourites…read more Home to and starting point of Sydney's Bay Run (http://www.bayrun.com.au/?page_id=33), Callan Park is the perfect setting for exercise, dog walking and water-side strolls. Plus, as it was once the grounds of Callan Park Hospital for the Insane, it has bucket loads of eerie history. Heaps of off-leash dog areas means that any trip to Callan Park will often involve puppy encounters. The bays here are great for taking your pup for a swim as well (although locals say not to let them venture out too far due to lurking giant dog eating fish i.e. sharks) and double as a nice place to pop your own feet in the water. There's one inlet in particular that is my favourite spot to clear my head, a rock jutting out over the glittery water with five or six old wooden boats propped up on the shore. The bay run is a beautiful exercise backdrop, but if 7kms is a little daunting then the Callan Park Oval is an equally nice spot and committed crowds come here to prove it. If you prefer to escape the heat of middle-of-the-day exercise, the sports field lights are switched on at night, meaning you can get your night-time run in without tripping on an exposed root cloaked by the night. Callan Park Hospital for the Insane is now home to Sydney's School of Contemporary Arts (SCA). Many of the original wards remain, and a trip to the grounds at night time make for a particularly creepy experience (especially if you have a great story-teller in your midst). The history is worth checking out, but if it's not your kind of thing then the buildings are quite beautiful none the less. In summary, Callan Park is a) Beautiful b) Water-side c) Picnic friendly d) Exercise friendly e) Dog friendly f) Historical g) Interesting/Eerie h) Beautiful

Another one of Sydney's fantastic parks is Callan Park, located South-East of Rozelle and North of…read moreLilyfield. It's a very large park situated on the former location of the Callan Park Hospital for the Insane. It was part of the Rozelle Hospital complex with lines Iron Cove. I'm not sure if there may be some institution buildings still being used, but you can definitely see them scattered across the land. Now, it's filled mostly with empty ovals where people run laps, play with their dogs, or picnic. There are also lovely paths to jog or bike along (including the Bay Run, which passes right by), kids' playgrounds, and a playground designated for "cardio," with chin-up bars, benches, and poles. According to the Sydney City Farm website, the park was actually designed using 19th century landscaping meant to be therapeutic. For me, a run along the cove was definitely therapeutic.

El Dorado, the Lost City of Gold, exists, and it's right there in plain sight, right next to…read moreCentral station and just down the road from every damned hipster bar and coffee shop worth caring about. What the hell am I talking about? Prince Alfred Pool is what I'm talking about. No, not talking. Gushing, in strictly the non-chatroom sense. I always thought this was a scummy hobo park littered with needles and broken dreams. But I took a punt on a friends advice and hit this pool up for an afternoon swim and I stand before you a changed man. Firstly, it's free until November. Nada, nix, bupkiss. Secondly, it's a hella nice pool, with clean, clear water, lotsa lanes, and - the best - a huge slope of grassy wonderland for sunbaking and, sure, perving, because why not? There's a big wooden deck under a tree, umbrellas, a cafe, and state of the art changerooms. We even smuggled a bottle of wine in and got a little sozzled in the sun. Fine a lot sozzled. What a day though. I particularly enjoyed the city workers who busted out the budgie smugglers and were sprawling out in the sun while getting through a fat stack of reports. Now that's how you read, son. That's how you read.

They've finished building it, and it's beautiful. This is an outdoor Council pool set within the…read morelandscape at Prince Alfred Park, near Central Station. It's a great design: grassy hills, big yellow sun umbrellas, with detailing in dark wood and swimming-pool blue. There's not that much to it: a 50m pool and a cafe, change rooms, lockers, and little fountain thing for toddlers to run around in. It's highly green rated : sustainable materials, tri-gen energy, water recycling. The pool is clean and heated (though not too too hot). Suitable for wintertime laps, though getting out of the pool is the unpleasant bit. Today I was a bit unimpressed with people's pool etiquette (the slow lane is not for standing around in with your boyfriend, it's for swimming, morons - and a few stray legs from the play lane heading into the lap lanes, hmph), but I guess that's life in a public pool. It has the standard fast, medium, slow, and leisure lanes and mostly people understand what that means. I'm pretty thrilled that I had a swim in late May, and lay around in the sun. Go Sydney. Go Prince Alfred Park. And the best bit: it's free for the first 6 months! (Until some time in November 2013...)

Hodgson Lookout is on the upper level of Kurraba Reserve at the southern end of Kurraba Road and is…read moreone of the least well known reserves on this foreshore that has spectacular harbour and city views. The park is accessible by bus, ferry or car with limited street parking. It is a great picnc area with a custom designed playground and massive fig trees to shade from the heat of summer. Dogs are welcome on the Reserve but are not permitted within 10m of the playground. There is seating and even a water bubbler. On New Year's Eve it is one of the only parks where alcohol is not permitted as its focus on a safe environment for families to enjoy. In the 1800's this land use to belong to Port Jackson and Manly steam ship company's for ferry maintenance, the workshops closed in 1974 and the land was purchased by the State Government and Kurraba Reserve, therefore Hodgsons Lookout was created. In Spring, the Jacaranda's rain their purple flower like confetti in the streets surrounding the Reserve with a celebratory feeling of summer is nigh.