Sydney Fish Market

Sydney Fish Market handles the catch from across New South Wales and beyond, running a Dutch auction each weekday morning in which prices fall until a buyer bids, a system that has operated here since the 1980s and moves thousands of crates before most of the city is awake. Behind the auction floor is the public side: retailers selling whole fish, prawns, oysters, bugs and sashimi, with counters cooking to order and tables outside on the water. Guided tours take visitors onto the auction floor at dawn. The market is best known nationally for its trading marathon before Christmas, when it stays open for thirty-six hours straight and enormous crowds come for prawns.

What you actually see

• The auction floor - the dawn Dutch auction, seen on guided tours.
• The retail halls - whole fish, prawns, oysters and sashimi counters.
• The cooked seafood - grills and fryers serving to tables on the water.
• The scale of trade - the volume moving through the largest market of its kind south of the equator.

When to go

Year-round; go early, since the best selection is in the morning and the market closes mid-afternoon. Auction tours run on set weekday mornings and book out. The pre-Christmas trading marathon is spectacular and chaotic in equal measure.

Honest expectations

The outdoor tables are notorious for aggressive seagulls and ibis. Prices are not especially cheap for retail buyers. The precinct is a construction site in parts during the long-running move to a new building nearby. Parking is limited and busy.

Nearby

Darling Harbour lies east; the Anzac Bridge and Glebe are adjacent.