Sydney's Heroes!

Time to name their sacred Sydney sites so we can all pay tribute...

1 Arthur Stace - Eternity

Sydney's most famous writer, he etched the word 'Eternity' on the heart of the city. Read the full story on Arthur Stace

2 Angus Young - Rock'n'roll deity

Angus is the Sydney schoolboy who conquered the rock world. The Burwood boy's unparalleled guitar virtuosity while duck-walking, floor-spinning and speaker stack-scaling makes him a hero of headbanging. The pocket rocket AC/DC icon is now 35 years into a chord-crunching career that has produced 16 studio albums and 200 million album sales worldwide, not to mention producing blistering solos that every Aussie guy and gal knows and can air-guitar too.
Sacred site Ashfield Boys High, 117 Liverpool Rd, Ashfield, where Angus (and rhythm playing brother Malcolm) schooled and whose glammed-up uniform he wears to this day.

3 Brett Whiteley - Artist

No artist before or since has captured the opiated majesty of Sydney Harbour as Whiteley did. Painting maniacally from his tower studio in Lavendar Bay, the Sydney painting prodigy worked in a blur of azure blues and foaming whitecaps, always imbuing his work with the wild and sweeping beauty that made him a very local hero indeed. As self-destructive as the Surry Hills mean streets he later haunted, this curly haired genius of the canvas continues to influence the world's sun-kissed and exuberant view of Sydney even 16 years after his death and a million miles from the notoriously "difficult pleasure" of his muse.
Sacred site Visit the great man's studio as he left it. 2 Raper St, Surry Hills 2010 (02 9225 1740).

4 Heath Ledger - The late great

Ledger was 17 when he crossed the Nullabor and hit Sydney with 69 cents in his pocket. It was the dawn of a decade-long affair with Siren City that took in two classic Sydney films - Two Hands and Candy - and peaked when he moved his family into a Bronte beach palace in 2005. Alas, it culminated in his broken-hearted flight to Brooklyn to escape our prying paparazzi a year on. A short Sydney life lived very fast. 
Sacred site Named for the Wuthering Heights hero, he was Bronte in name and address. You can see his old pad - tinted black - only too well from Bronte beach on the Tamarama side.

5 Felix the Cat

The feline who gave Disney's Mickey Mouse a run for his money was created by our own Pat Sullivan

6 Annette Kellerman - Million dollar mermaid

"Those who have not given themself completely to the sun and wind and cold sting of the waves will never know the meaning of life." This very Sydney philosophy was the creed of the Marrickville swim champ who shocked Hollywood as the Million Dollar Mermaid. After overcoming a fear of the sea and an arrest for the brevity of her bathers that led to her having swimwear laws changed, Annette Kellerman's 1914 epic Neptune's Daughter was the first ever to gross a million bucks at the box office.
Sacred site Kellerman learned to swim at the Dick Cavill Baths in Farm Cove near the site of the Opera House, Bennelong Point.

7 Bennelong - Blackfella #1

The first bridge between white and black Sydneysiders, Bennelong was a Wangal warrior whose friendship with Governor Arthur Phillip brokered peace between the two warring tribes (saving Phillip's life as well). He later sailed to London and met King George III but died in exile.
Sacred site The home Phillip built for Bennelong is now the site of the Opera House.

8 Tetsuya - World beating chef

The greatest chef in Sydney got his start at Kinselas, a funeral parlour turned fine diner then run by Tony Bilson. The Hamamatsu-born Tetsuya Wakuda struck out on his own with the fusion cuisine for which he is now globally famous. After stints in Rozelle, Hunters Hill and Ultimo, 'Tet' settled in the CBD with Tetsuya's, a now deified site where a 13-course degustation (including his signature Tasmanian trout confit) is ranked one of the top ten gustatory experiences on the planet.
Sacred siteTetsuya's Sydney

9 Captain Cook - Explorer

Hired to travel the Pacific and record the transit of Venus across the Sun, Cook ended up discovering Australia. He made the first white footprint on Sydney soil at Kurnell on 19April 1770, later naming the place Botany Bay after the wildly diverse species collected by botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. He then travelled north only to shipwreck on the Great Barrier Reef and later, be speared to death by Hawaiians - proof positive he should never left Sydney.
Sacred siteCooks River near Botany Bay where the good captain encountered the first Sydneysiders - the Gweagal, aka 'The Fire Clan'.

10 Peter Garrett - Rocking politician

Grandson of an Anzac, the beanpole northern beaches boy turned rocker turned greenie turned federal pollie, has fought a long battle on the Australian frontline. As lead singer of Midnight Oil his spaz dance and chrome dome set tongues wagging as did the fiery political content of the songs and Sydney name dropping. Now a federal member for the seat of Kingsford Smith where he's battling the bombast of developers and digging in against the forces of evil.
Sacred siteGarrett's political playground is Maroubra Beach where he's trying to reclaim the headland from a rifle range. Bunnerong Rd, Maroubra.

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