The Thousands

With crusty pies oozing lava-like peas and gravy from the iconic Harry’s Café de Wheels, and Blue Hotel’s fluffy white robes, harbour views fit to break a murderer’s heart, a delightful maritime/pioneering theme, and a heated lap pool you’d almost say ‘hell yes!’ to drowning in, Cowper Wharf Road in Woolloomooloo is clearly where sailors, lovers, and any adult with all five senses go to get fat and happy.

First up, the rap sheet: Blue Hotel is carved into the historic Finger Wharf, which is the largest timber-piled building in the world (whatever that means). It once peddled wool, and then moved onto the lucrative trades of troop deployment and immigration. After this period of high-glamour the space fell into disrepair until a series of union tussles and cash injections turned it into the consumerist behemoth it is today, complete with boutique hotel Blue, the accompanying fancy-pants bar Water, and a handful of other restaurants and bars. Russell Crowe owns a $14 mill pad in the new development, alongside local douchebag and talk-back radio host John Laws.

But don’t let the company fool you – this hotel is all class. Retaining its rustic, shipping-dock walls and industrial fittings throughout the cavernous interior, but modernising the shit out of the rooms (the flatscreen TV was bigger than my apartment) – it’s a neat mix of plush luxury and street-grit authenticity. Just go easy on the pies.