Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk

One of my favorite things that we've done so far is to take the coastal walk that begins just south of Bondi Beach and meanders down to Coogee. The path will take you past most of the beaches in the eastern suburbs. In order, you pass Bondi, Tamarama, Bronte, Clovelly, Gordons Bay, and Coogee.

The trek stretches over 6 km (about 3.73 miles) of coastline. I've read that this should take you about 1.5 to 2 hours to complete if you are moving at a good pace. I'm sure you can complete it even more quickly if you take it as a jogging route, which I just might do sometime. However, there is sooooo much to see and I highly recommend taking your time to wander through the walk the first time. We stopped A LOT, so It took us between 3.5 and 4 hours. Here is a rough approximation of the route:

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Everywhere you look there is something cool to see or do. In the course of our hike we got to see tons of different things. We played in tide pools and touched a couple of anemones.

We caught a glimpse of a drum circle.

We played on a playground. G and I tried to seesaw, but I think that the seesaw may have been designed for smaller people than we are.

We walked along a beautiful wooden bridge along side the lovely, old Waverly Cemetery.

We meandered up and down hills and watched many waves crash. If you want to feel at one with nature, well, there are tons to lookouts at which to be awed and many inviting rocks on which to meditate. As Emerson would have, I felt "the current of the universal being circulate through me" many times over.

For a large section of the hike, the path was a mere suggestion that we completely ignored. Starting from about Mackenzies Point, just beyond Bondi, it is very easy to walk on the rocks off-trail and work your way all the way down to Tamarama Beach.

When presented with such excellent specimens of rocks, really the only option can be to scramble and scamper amongst them. There are so many cool rock formations and small caves, there is no way you can pass up to crawl into them.

You could practically live in some of the little caves. Actually, it appeared that a couple did have residents.

We spent a long time exploring this area.

It feels truly magical. And let's just say for minute that you're a twenty-nine year old woman -- and never mind that your knee aches a little from running and you woke up that morning with pains in your back -- but nonetheless, you want to just put all that aside and pretend that you are and Elven Warrior Princess on a quest. Well, a magical staff-sword will be ready and waiting for you.

(I may have succeeded in being less Elven Princes and more 'Where the Wild Things Are')

You certainly don't have to take the whole trek all at once either. G and I have returned since to do smaller sections of the route again - in particular to scramble over a few more rocks. This really can't help but make you feel like a kid again.

There really isn't much I can give by way of description that wouldn't be better illustrated through images. Luckily, G only took about a million. Here are a few.

Oh, and then he took just a few more when we went back and walked from Bronte up to Bondi.

This site has a good guide with point of interest and historical note: http://www.waverley.nsw.gov.au/council/parks/parks/coastwalk.asp I may even take this with me next time. A nice map is also available for download.