Bondi Beach

Perhaps one of the most famous stretches of beach in the world, Bondi lies just a few short miles east of downtown Sydney - in the eastern suburbs – and even on a winter’s day, is spectacular.
The beach itself has over half a mile of uninterrupted golden sand that curves invitingly around a bay. Surfers come here from miles around (and from all over the world) and in summertime (December!) the beach can get so crowded that you cannot even see the sand. So a midwinter’s day was a perfect time to visit Bondi (although it almost reached 70 degrees today!)

I had to become a temporary member of one of the swimming and surfing clubs – the Bondi Icebergs Club – in order to go in to what I thought was just café and order a coffee! I will proudly keep hold of my membership card. Just next to the clubhouse is a stunning swimming pool, which is filled naturally by seawater. Yet another great Australian pool with a view. No wonder they have had so many great swimmers through the years. Ian Thorpe – the ‘Thorpedo’ is a native of Sydney.
I watched as several surfers braved what must have been relatively cold waters – and was impressed by their patience and technique as they waited for the ideal wave to come along. At least there were no sharks around – although I had been told that earlier in the year, due to unseasonal temperatures in the ocean, there had been an unusually large number of shark sightings at Bondi – and at several other Sydney beaches. I got the impression that this was just something you got used to and half expected – as nobody ever seemed particularly bothered or alarmed when talking about sharks in the areas that they liked to swim and surf in.

I walked around the headland, enjoying more great views of the whole bay and looked to to sea for a while thinking to myself what a vast stretch of ocean lay ahead. Next landfall, if you missed the north of New Zealand, maybe Hawaii? It’s no wonder Australia remained the great undiscovered continent for so long. It really is surrounded by a LOT of ocean – the South Pacific to the east and the Indian Ocean to the west. It is incredible when you remember that it took until 1770 for Captain Cook to make it here.
With Cook on my mind, I left Bondi and headed back in to Sydney – to visit Darling Harbour. The Maritime Museum is based here – and right next to it is a full size replica of Cook’s ship, Endeavour. This replica re-created the exact voyage from Whitby, North Yorkshire (England) to Sydney during the 1990s.
Funnily enough, I had actually been in Whitby at the time when the replica Endeavour was moored there, prior to its long voyage to Australia. It was good to see it again – and, having seen Cook’s cottage in Melbourne, I felt I had paid homage to this great British explorer and his significant achievements and place in the Australian story.
Darling Harbour is a fairly recently developed part of Sydney, full of the obvious cafes, restaurants and souvenir shops – as well as an aquarium, Imax cinema (which was proudly advertising ‘Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince’ in Imax and 3-D!) a Chinese garden, and - intriguingly - a monorail system.
Sydney’s Chinatown area borders Darling Harbour and I had a chance to wander through, feeling at once transported to an Asian market with all its sights, sounds and wonderful smells. There were hundreds of Chinese restaurants and food stores – and for several blocks every piece of writing (on signs, stores, street names and advertising) was in Chinese script. Geographically, Australia has proximity with the Asian mainland and, particularly, Thailand, Indonesia and China. This has resulted in Australian cuisine having a heavy influence from this region, as well as (in the last 30 years or so) Australia becoming home to many who emigrated from these and other nearby Asian countries. This has made Australia into an incredibly diverse, multicultural society – many say unmatched by anywhere else apart from the USA. Captain Cook (who was one of the few early explorers to actually reach out to and respect the Aboriginal people) would have been rather pleased at how this land has become home to so many from all around the world.