The Moreton Bay fig, Ficus macrophylla, is native to the central New South Wales coast and was planted across central Sydney from the 1860s onward. The Hyde Park north–south rows date from the 1880s; the specimens along Macquarie Street and through the Royal Botanic Gardens are similar age. A mature Ficus macrophylla has a buttressed trunk a few meters across and a crown that spreads thirty meters or more — broader than it is tall — with dense, glossy, evergreen leaves that hold full cover year-round. The result is one of the rare central-city walks anywhere where you can move continuously between three large public greens — Hyde, the Domain, the Botanic — under canopy that does not thin in winter.
The picks below assume January, the bad month: the Sydney summer is now reliably above thirty for stretches and the harbor breeze, which used to be the city’s shade equivalent, often arrives later in the afternoon than it used to. The walk is shaded; it is also flat. A practical note: the Macquarie Street footpath has been narrowed by light rail construction in places; Stay Cool routes you to the building side when the fig line falls on the road side.