Two weekends ago, I started off a little project when I walked from the south head of Sydney Harbour to Bondi Beach. Last weekend I continued that project by starting at Bondi Beach and following the coastal route down to Maroubra Beach. Originally, I was just going to go to Coogee Beach, along the way, but since I'd done that bit of the walk last year when I was here, so I decided to continue past Coogee and end up down in Maroubra.
The walk is beautiful any time of year, but it's best done with sun and a bit of warmth. I had the sun last week, which helped, but it was a bit breezy and though I brought jeans with me, I never put them on. Bondi Beach was great. Not as crowded as the week before, but there were still plenty of surfers, and the Icebergs Swim Club's tidal pool had a few swimmers braving the waves to get a few laps in. With nice weather in Sydney comes weddings and along the coast is no exception. Right off the bat, I passed a small wedding right up on top of the rocks, and being a windy day there were plenty of people flying kites as well.
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| Bondi Beach |
I didn't get too far but was hungry already. Luckily, the next cove south of Bondi Beach is a little inlet called Tamarama Beach were I stopped for a chocolate shake and chicken burger at the little Tamarama Beach Cafe and watched a surfer catch a few waves, which is just mind boggling because there are rocks everywhere along the beach and when I say that Tamarama Beach is just a little inlet, I mean it is narrow. How that surfer survived, I'm not sure! If I were to try my hand at surfing, I would definitely go somewhere like Bondi or Bronte Beaches where the water is just wider. In fact, at Bronte Beach, the next beach along my walk, the first Surf Life Saving Club in Australia was established train and build up a force of people poised to help surfers and swimmers at risk out in the cold waters of the Pacific.
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| Tamarama Surf Life Saving Club |
Just past Bronte Beach is one of the most beautiful cemeteries I've ever seen. The Waverley Cemetery is perched right on top of the sandstone cliffs and extends right to their edge. Recently, a modern boardwalk was built between the cemetery and the ocean, which also protects native hanging swamps along the cliffs which are home to a few species of frogs which you can hear chirping in the water-soaked pools.
Continuing along the path is Burrows Park, where you can watch lawn bowling or rugby (or Australian football...I'm not sure what type of field I was looking at, actually) and can stroll right out to the flat sandstone and watch the waves crash below your feet. Then the path leads you around the extremely narrow Clovelly Cove which is built up with concrete on either side of the inlet and since rocks off the coast extend across the mouth of the cove, it's actually fairly protected from heavy ocean waves and many people were swimming laps in the inlet. Following Clovelly is a wider cove where concrete pillars have been sunk under water and connected with chains so divers, and snorkelers on clear days, can follow an underwater path and see some of the coastal wildlife.
Just before Coogee Beach is a very nice sculpture dedicated in memory to the Australian lives lost in the 2002 terrorist bombings in Bali. The three rings represent Family, Friends, and Community and are all intertwined. Next to the memorial is another one of the many seaside baths, protected by man-made or natural barriers from the pounding ocean waves. But then you're in Coogee, a wide, sandy, less-crowded but nonetheless stunning surfing beach.
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| Bali Memorial |
I thought about stopping and finishing the walk to Maroubra Beach another day, but I still had a few hours of daylight left and decided to go for it. The walk continues through parks and along another long boardwalk built over native wetlands where I stopped for a few moments to take some photos of a heron who was feeding in the shallow pools.
Not long thereafter the coastal walk dumps you out in a suburb and I almost lost the trail, but a nice local gave me directions which led me down a very narrow and steep stairway between very nice houses. The local told me that I should have no problem walking along the rocks since it wasn't too windy, so I put my trust in him and carried on. For the next stretch of the walk, I had to make my own way over the rocks right along the coast where the waves, saltwater, and animals have created stunning weathering patterns in the rock.
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| Weathering patterns on the coastal rocks |
After one more walk through a park on one of the coastal headlands, my path turned me toward Maroubra Beach right at sunset and I stumbled over the rocks, through a small crowd of fishermen, and out onto the beach which was wide, wind-swept, and empty! There isn't much to the little beach front part of Maroubra itself, but I did congratulate myself with a schooner of beer at the Maroubra Hotel and caught a bus home.
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