Middle Harbour by Boat: the Spit, Chinamans Beach & the Quiet Reaches

Turn north instead of west and Sydney Harbour changes character completely. Past Middle Head, through the narrows at the Spit, the skyline drops away behind you and the water opens into steep bush ridges, deep quiet bays and beaches that sit flat when the main harbour is white-capping. This is Middle Harbour, the harbour's great northern arm, and it is the half of a famous harbour that most visitors never see.

It is also the half a good skipper quietly relies on. On a blustery day, when the eastern anchorages are rolling and everybody is hanging on to their drink, Middle Harbour is where a Sydney day goes to be pleasant instead.

Where Middle Harbour actually is

Middle Harbour branches north off the main harbour between Middle Head and Grotto Point, then runs inland for miles, narrowing as it goes until it finishes as a creek in national park.

Middle Head, on the southern side of the entrance, is harbourside national park with old military fortifications cut into the sandstone, and it rewards a slow cruise past. Grotto Point, on the northern side, carries the small white light that marks the way in. Between the two the water is deep and open, and often lively, because the harbour entrance and the ocean swell are just around the corner.

Inside, everything settles. The bays get deeper and greener, the houses get further apart, and the boat traffic thins out to almost nothing. There is one pinch point on the way in, and it is worth understanding before you book.

The Spit Bridge, and getting through it

The Spit is the narrow gap between Mosman and Seaforth, and the Spit Bridge crosses it. It is a lifting bridge, and it opens on a published schedule to let tall masts through, which is why Middle Harbour's sailing fleet plans its whole day around the lift.

For most guests on a day charter this is invisible. A typical motor day boat runs underneath without the bridge needing to move at all, and anything taller simply waits for an opening. Either way it is your skipper's problem rather than yours. It is the one reason a Middle Harbour day gets planned rather than improvised, so mention it when you talk through your day.

Chinamans Beach

A few minutes inside the Spit, on the Mosman shore, is the beach that makes the case for the whole trip. Chinamans Beach is wide, calm and about as easy a swim as Sydney Harbour offers, sheltered from almost any breeze and shallow off the sand. Families love it for exactly that reason, and so do skippers.

It is the standard answer to an awkward forecast. When a northerly has chopped up the eastern harbour and the postcard anchorages are uncomfortable, this is the bay that stays swimmable, and it is a genuinely lovely place to spend an afternoon rather than a consolation prize.

The bush-backed beaches on the northern shore

Cross to the northern side and the beaches get smaller and greener. Clontarf sits just inside the Spit with a netted swimming enclosure and a big grassy reserve behind it, which makes it one of the most relaxed family stops on the whole harbour. Further out towards the entrance, Castle Rock is a small pocket of sand backed by the bush of Sydney Harbour National Park, quiet almost every day of the year because the only ways in are a walking track or a boat.

If beaches you cannot drive to are the whole point of your day, our guide to the Sydney Harbour beaches only reachable by boat runs through the best of them across the harbour.

The quiet reaches

Keep going past the beaches and Middle Harbour becomes something else again. This is the part almost nobody sees, and it is the reason to give the day some room.

Sailors Bay, below Northbridge, is the first of the long green fingers, lined with moored boats and steep bushland. Sugarloaf Bay runs in below Castlecrag, the suburb the American architect Walter Burley Griffin laid out in the 1920s after designing Canberra, and his idea of houses tucked into the landscape rather than imposed on it still reads clearly from the water.

Best of all is Bantry Bay, deep in Garigal National Park. There is no road in, the shoreline is unbroken bush, and the old explosives magazine complex on the western side, built early last century and long since decommissioned, sits there heritage-listed and slowly greening over. Drifting into Bantry Bay on a still morning, with nothing in earshot but birds, it is genuinely hard to believe the Sydney skyline is just around the corner.

The head of the harbour

Beyond Bantry Bay the water narrows towards Middle Harbour Creek, the bush closes in on both sides, and the harbour finishes as a mangrove-lined tidal creek under the Roseville Bridge. How far up you get is a question of the tide and the boat, and it is entirely your skipper's call.

You do not need to reach the top for the trip to be worth it. The stretch between Sugarloaf Bay and Bantry Bay is the pick of it, and getting that far already puts you somewhere most Sydneysiders have never been.

Why a skipper heads this way

The reason a private boat beats a fixed beach on this harbour is that the wind decides everything, and a boat can move. Sydney summers run on a northeasterly that fills in through the afternoon, and it turns the open eastern harbour bouncy while Middle Harbour, screened by high bush ridges on both sides, stays comfortable.

So this is the fair-weather bolt-hole, and it is the right call surprisingly often. Tell your skipper you want the calmest, clearest water going rather than a fixed itinerary, and on plenty of days they will take you north through the Spit. Swimming is always at their call: they anchor where the conditions are safe and put the ladder down when it is right.

Lunch on this side of the harbour

Middle Harbour does lunch two ways. The first is at anchor, which is what these bays are made for: drop the pick off a calm beach, lay the food out on the back deck, swim before and after, and let the afternoon go where it wants.

The second is a table ashore, and the mouth of Middle Harbour happens to hold two of the harbour's loveliest waterfront rooms, at Balmoral and at Chowder Bay. Both are covered, along with how a charter actually arrives at each, in our guide to waterfront restaurants on Sydney Harbour by boat. Book the table first and plan the boat around it.

Planning a Middle Harbour day

One honest note on distance. The Sydney fleet is based at Double Bay, so Middle Harbour is a proper run rather than a five-minute hop, out across the harbour, past Middle Head and in through the Spit. That is part of the pleasure, but it does mean this suits a longer day, and it means being clear about where you want to get to when you book.

A good running order is simple: head north through the Spit late morning, swim at Chinamans or Clontarf, lunch at anchor, then spend the afternoon drifting the reaches as far up as the tide allows, and come home along the north shore with the city ahead of you.

Pick your date and a boat that fits your group. Every Ahoy Days listing shows a live from-rate, its licensed capacity and its inclusions, and books instantly online, and the Double Bay team plans Sydney days on the water for a living. Tell your skipper you want the green, quiet side of the harbour, and let them build the day around the wind.