Secret Sydney

I'm standing outside Sydney's Central Station and there's a thing of beauty parked in front of me: a 1964 EH Holden Premier in a gleaming marine shade that I'm told is Portsea Blue.

This shiny piece of Australian automotive history is waiting to take me on a personalised tour of Sydney's backstreets and byways.

It belongs to Richard Graham, a Sydneysider who had a vision when riding in a colectivo shared car across the Nazca Desert in Peru a few years ago. He liked the vibe of the old Cadillac and the authenticity of the experience, so he decided to combine an Australian classic car with intimate tours of his home town.

The result is My Sydney Detour. "They're tours aimed at people who don't like tours," he says of a range of bespoke trips that are designed as much by the tour members as the tour guide.

I have half a day to kill before I board the Indian Pacific train to Perth, so Graham's taking me on his Redfern tour. Featured in the recent ABC TV series Redfern Now, the suburb is well known for its Aboriginal community, but it's rarely visited by non-locals.

The tour starts with a coffee and a chat outside Cafe Ella in Darlington. Mid-morning on a humid day, it's a mellow, relaxed place, very much a local hang-out and matching Graham's "Become a local in a day" tagline.

We leave the Holden behind and walk east along Lawson Street into Redfern. As we go, my guide highlights the gentrification of the area by pointing out million-dollar terraces, with their decorative iron lace, and contrasting them with the grim concrete "suicide towers" housing blocks further on. Surprisingly, we then drop into the guide's own home, a cool renovated space with retro furniture and colourful contemporary art.

It's time to enter The Block, the hub of Redfern's indigenous community.