Sione Polhill and Bella Garner have travelled from Hay,NSW,to participate in a swimming carnival in Sydney.

The free public pool Jack built to stop ‘haunting’ fears of parents

Hay,population 3000,is bucking the trend of declining swimming carnivals with a large carnival and two weeks of swimming lessons for every primary student. Using its 50-metre pool is free.

  • Julie Power

Latest

A design carrying the name Archer Designs for a 500metre square apartment at Altair which was withdrawn after owners ciriticism.

More like a tomb than luxury apartments:The plans dividing Sydney’s elite

It’s home to celebrities,politicians,lawyers,bankers and Hare Krishnas,but how will the Altair’s forecourt redevelopment turn out?

  • Julie Power
CLT with TLC.

New Sydney homes that go up ‘like a Lego kit’

A leading architect whose clients include 20 of Australia’s richest people is experimenting with fast,sustainable materials on a row of four terraces in Bondi Junction.

  • Julie Power
Historian Zeny Edwards,right,has written a book about the mosaics of the Melocco Brothers,including this example in the State Library of NSW.

The forgotten and overlooked Sydney art you may be standing on right now

The Melocco brothers painted in stone,and their work turned architecture into art in places nearly every Sydneysider has visited. Look down,or you may miss it.

  • Julie Power
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra perform a concert at the SCG as part of their Vanguard program which brings the orchestra’s out of the concert halls and into unusual venues across Sydney.

A stunning six at the SCG,but of a very different nature to the usual

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Vanguard program stepped out of the Opera House,mixing Mozart and Gershwin with Bradman’s baggy green and other memorabilia.

  • Julie Power
Sebastian Rigley,12,says Turramurra Public has a school swimming carnival but his family has noticed a difference in attitude to swimming.

In NSW,swimming lessons started in 1880. Now some schools struggle to put a relay team together

After nationwide research showed participation in school swimming carnivals had plunged,experts say a lot of students are missing out on key skills.

  • Julie Power andFrances Howe
Advertisement
Jackson Teede 11y

School swimming carnivals are dying. It’s putting a generation at risk

One in four schools around Australia have abandoned the annual swimming carnival,research shows,as Royal Life Saving Australia sounds the alarm over safety.

  • Julie Power
Sita Sargeant will soon be running walking tours in Sydney and Melbourne that highlight women’s place in history.

The women who shaped Sydney history and changed Sita Sargeant’s life

A canny publican who used a legal loophole to vote inspired a new book and walking tours to showcase notable women in history.

  • Julie Power
Jess Johnston enjoys St Patricks Day at the Rocks under the shadow of the Harbour Bridge in stiffingly hot conditions. Jess has lived in Sydney for 5.5 years now but is originally from Dublin,Ireland. Sydney,16 March 2025. Photo Jessica Hromas

‘Water,and Guinness’:How Sydneysiders fought the autumn heatwave

As Sydney endured a brutally hot,dry and windy Sunday,one group turned to a traditional way to manage the heat.

  • Julie Power,Angus Thomson andKayla Olaya
bufo marinus

Here’s a simple solution to the cane toad invasion. And it costs just 66¢ a hectare

A narrow patch of land stands between the invasive species and the Pilbara – 27 million hectares where native species thrive. A new program taking aim at the cane toads’ Achilles heel.

  • Julie Power