The Rocks Sydney Audio Guide for Sydney

Welcome to The Rocks, the historic heart of Sydney and the very spot where the story of modern Australia began. As you stand here, you are walking on the traditional lands of the Gadigal people, who for tens of thousands of years called this rocky headland Tallawoladah. In January seventeen eighty-eight, the First Fleet of eleven British ships moored right here in Sydney Cove, bringing a human cargo of convict exiles to an alien land. Today, this twenty-hectare precinct is a rare pocket of the nineteenth-century city that has survived against all odds, nestled perfectly between the glass skyscrapers of the Central Business District and the iconic steel arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Take a deep breath and look around at the rugged sandstone walls; they gave this area its name and served as the literal foundation for a new nation. You are about to journey through centuries of grit, gold, and rebellion.