Date: Saturday, 14th March, 2026, 10:30am tour start
Venue:  Chinese Garden of Friendship
Pier Street, Corner of Harbour Street, Darling Harbour NSW 2000 (Google Maps Link)
Cost: AGHS Members $25, Non-members $35, Students $15
Notes: Ticketholders, please be at the gardens entry early for a 10:30am start

Enjoy a tour of the Chinese Garden of Friendship with expert guides, landscape architect and urban designer, Oi Choong and heritage specialist, Julian Siu. They prepared the conservation management plan for the garden, which preceded its listing on the NSW heritage register.

This plan is guiding changes, like the 2025 Meandering Pathway of Tranquility. It complements a 2012 major horticultural maintenance plan, 2004 landscape maintenance plan, Feng Shui analysis and advice from 1988 – 2004 from Guangzhou Garden Planning & Building Design Institute, in many visits. Gardens evolve!

Designed in China by Guangdong Landscape Bureau, it was built, planted, and opened in 1988 as a joint government project, part of celebrating Australia’s Bicentenary. It represents the culmination of aspirations of Australian-Chinese communities and years of organising. It celebrates the longevity and contribution of Australian-Chinese people to NSW and the sister state relationship of NSW and Guangdong province. It is one of few traditional public Chinese gardens created outside mainland China.

The garden was listed on the NSW State Heritage Register in 2018 as exemplar of a community-based late 20th century overseas Chinese garden (as found in Australasia, North America, and Europe). As NSW’s first ling-nam (Southern or Cantonese style) garden developed cooperatively between Sydney’s Chinese communities, NSW & Chinese public authorities. And as a symbol of the welcoming of Australian-Chinese communities into NSW & Australian society.

This tour is a Sydney re-visit the gardens in late summer/Autumn- a contrast to our last visit, mid-winter, July 2024.