Discovering more to like about Sydney

Reliving the coastal walk from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach  

Bondi Beach.

Just off the one-hour plane ride from Sydney to Melbourne, on which I was planning to tackle this latest entry….until I got seated next to Nakita, the 20-something year-old adorable massage therapist who was born in South Africa but moved to Sydney with her family 15 years ago. I never get the lucky seat, save today. Keyboard did not get touched, magazine did not either. We chatted, we laughed, and she even bought me a bottle of water before I could pull the required coins from my pocket. You get the point. No writing got done and I think there was some sort of ’80s soundtrack being played underneath our conversation. Anyway, it was a very cool conversation with someone I would never have met in my daily routine—the best part of traveling, I’d say. All the better if it’s a young female massage therapist. 

Skate pool at Bondi Beach.

So, we’re fast forwarding to now, when I’ve got a few minutes to hammer out some notes on some more time spent in and around Sydney, which I’m starting to like more and more with each step taken on what are now very sore feet. Tuesday was my first full day in Australia, and also the first day I did not feel punch-drunk from being sleep-deprived. After squeezing in a quick workout at the hotel fitness center to get the blood moving after the previous day’s lengthy flight, I felt much more energized. So I headed for Sydney Harbour with a stop at a fruit stand in the middle of the financial district for an on-the-go breakfast. Two bucks and I was fed. As I crossed the street, I heard one guy saying to another that he was just out for a walk from the office. I bring this up because it was 10:30am on a Tuesday, and one thing I’ve noticed here is that Aussies seem very “relaxed” about their work schedules, if you can call that a schedule. They seem to take off randomly for a couple of hours in the middle of the day. I’m told that some Friday lunches can turn into three-hour breaks, with a return to the office at around 4pm for the sole purpose of finding out what your co-workers are up to that evening. Where do I sign up?

It was a spectacularly sunny day, so I spent the morning walking through The Rocks section of town, then across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which provides a fantastic view of the city, the harbor and the Opera House. (For a guy who doesn’t particularly care for operas, I’ve got more photos of that opera house than one single, straight male should.) I kept going across the bridge into a town called Milson’s Point, with small houses that are all rather beautifully landscaped considering the limited land they have. Much of the neighborhood looks back across the harbor at the city, so, like most of Sydney, the cost of real estate here must be astronomical. The streets of Milson’s Point all smelled like fresh flowers. I don’t usually notice stuff like that, but it was overwhelming and pleasant, so I kept walking.

Eventually, I made my way to the Milson’s Point train/subway station and—after one train change in the city where I was subjected to a young woman who really thought everyone around her wanted to hear half of her cell phone conversation (we didn’t)—rode out to Bondi Junction. From there, it’s about a mile and a half down a long hill to the famed Bondi Beach. Bondi itself is a bit of a Bohemian place, where young people come to chill out and, by the looks of things, not do much else. As I walked down the street toward the beach, groups of 20-25-year-old girls would periodically pass in the opposite direction dressed in beach attire, all speaking various languages. I was looking forward to seeing Bondi Beach. On the whole, much of this area looked to be filled with young backpacker types who are spending their parents’ money living on a pretty sweet Aussie beach for the summer. If you can get that gig, good on ya, mate! (As they say in these parts.)

The coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee. 

Bondi Beach itself is as advertised; a large swath of light-brown-colored sand with a solid surf break and a ton of attractive people. The water is crystal clear along the shore and the beach stretches away from the beach for a good 100 yards. At the end of the beach, skateboarders dropped into two empty pools and threw tricks above the lip. It was a pretty cool scene. I had a beer at a local watering hole and solicited advice from the bartender on what else to see. He recommended the coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee Beach, which he said would take “about an hour.” This is where I should point out that, when you travel, the elements of time are about the only things that do not change. Power adapters, tipping traditions, the cost of a beer—all of them vary from country to country. But an hour in Sydney is an hour in Boston is an hour in Sri Lanka is an hour in Iceland (which must feel like a day). But an hour in Bondi must be 20 minutes everywhere else. This coastal walk was no “hour-long” stroll. It was, however, well worth the time and effort.

After relaxing for a little while on Bondi Beach, I went for a quick swim then packed up and began tackling the two-hour, “hour-long” walk to Coogee Beach. It was sensational. It has to be one of the greatest footpaths anyone has built anywhere. Around every corner, another gorgeous cove and small beach pops up beneath you. And just when you think you’ve seen them all, another one appears. The best part is that each beach (yes, I’m a rhyming poet now) has it’s own feel. Some are bigger than others, and some are such small slivers of sand that we wouldn’t even call them beaches in the U.S. Along the way are Tamarama, Bronte Beach, Clovelly Beach and, finally, Coogee Beach.

Nice view for the rest of your forever.

The coastline switches back and forth from rocky cliffs to pristine beaches in a matter of minutes. Pretty girls run by smiling and chatting in accents ranging from Aussie to American to German. Australia’s swimming culture is also very obvious here. Junior lifeguard training, rowing, sea kayaking, scuba diving and surfing; it’s all happening everywhere here. Roughly halfway through the walk is the Waverly Cemetery, which overlooks the coast and has to be the greatest piece of real estate occupied by dead people outside of the U.S. Capitol building. If they had this one to do over again, my guess is I’d be looking at hundreds of millions worth of homes on this spot. I reached Coogee Beach around 6pm and immediately found a comfortable bar stool at some kind of sports betting establishment along the beach for a well-deserved Kronenberg beer. NFL Primetime was on ESPN and I got to watch highlights of the Patriots beating the Chargers. Today was a good day.

As a little follow-up to my earlier post on walking on the left or right side of sidewalks, I’ll leave you with this experience from the end of my great day in Bondi and beyond, which was nearly ruined in a tragic escalator mishap. While heading back through the train station at Bondi Junction, I instinctively headed up the escalator on the right-hand side of the platform (as we would in the U.S). The trouble with this was that the escalator on the right-hand side was coming down. So you see the predicament we’re in here. I put one foot down on the last moving/disintegrating stair when I realized my error. Disaster was averted just in time when I jumped backwards before the escalator could take me out. But I had been exposed: Tourist!


Alright, I'm off to check out Melbourne. Still a bit more to come on Sydney.