We’ve made it to Sydney! Within hours of landing, we hopped in a vintage 1964 EH Holden Premier, the quintessential Australian car, and took a private tour unlike any other. My Sydney Detour, run by Richard Graham, is all about seeing a side of Sydney most tourists never get to experience.
Right from the start, you know this going to be something special, when Richard describe the 3-hour tour as “off the beaten track.” This isn’t about seeing Sydney’s most popular destinations, like the Sydney Opera House or Bondi Beach, it’s about uncovering small neighborhoods with incredible history and distinct character.
Our tour started off at Redfern, an inner-city suburb of Sydney that, at one time, had one of the largest Aboriginal populations in the country. Today it’s become a highly diverse community with a quickly growing art scene. To our surprise, Richard invited us into his own house, which is in Redfern, showing us his personal art collection of local Australian artists. We even got to step inside an actual studio of one of the artists, Hugh Ramage.
Ramage is an artist you’ll soon read more about on My Modern Met. Meeting him face to face was an experience we’ll never forget because, though he’s a quiet and unassuming man, his intense passion for what he does comes through not only in his various works, which are created in mediums ranging from concrete to cardboard, but in the way he describes his intense creative process.
We could go on and on about this tour, but what makes it truly unique is that Richard tailors the tour depending on your interests. For art lovers and those interested in Australia’s rich history, we can’t recommend this tour enough.
