Wildlife Retreat at Taronga

Wildlife Retreat at Taronga sells its rooms by what is outside the window. Bushland Rooms have the trees. Animal View Rooms look onto the Sanctuary, a habitat kept for guests, home to koalas and wallabies and to the bettongs and pademelons most visitors will need to look up. Harbour View Rooms and Treetop Suites look across the water to the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, which anywhere else in Sydney would settle the matter; here it has a koala to compete with. Cox Architecture built the five lodges in Taronga Zoo's grounds in 2019, in timber and glass, round a stream that spills over red rock. Inside, animals are traced in white line on the pale walls, and the Treetop Suites have a freestanding oval bath.

Recommended for families whose children would rather meet a koala than a kids' club, and for couples who want the harbour without the city around it. Families with children of ten and over can ask for interconnecting rooms. There is no pool and no spa, and the zoo makes up for both: the room key opens the retreat's own gate into Taronga for the whole stay, and between three and five a 30-minute tour goes round the Sanctuary, free to anyone who booked direct. The harbour gets its turn in N'Gurra Lounge, over Australian wines with the Opera House beyond the glass, and again at breakfast in Me-Gal. The city is twelve minutes away by ferry from the retreat's own wharf, should anyone want it. Check-out is at ten, and the front desk keeps the bags of anyone not finished with the zoo, which takes in most children.