Most days, part of my regime is to go to the gym, but on this particular day, with the sun shining and a light breeze coming off the water, I could not imagine being stuck in a hot gym, missing the beautiful morning! I filled up my backpack with all of the essentials: sunscreen, ipod, water, granola bar, phone, camera, wallet.
Despite a history of bad knees I set out for a run along the coastline. They call it the "Eastern Shore Walk." Running at a pretty good pace I went by beaches and coves, took a detour through a massive graveyard (not my choice: construction of a new coast boardwalk was underway) and after about 45 minutes got to my final destination: Bondi Beach! The mid-day sun was high in the sky and I was pretty tired, hot and sweaty. I opened my pack and took out the water to rehydrate, ate the granola bar and looked at the glorious expanse of beach in front of me... only to have it dawn on me that I should have brought a bathing suit!!! All that way and I didn't get to enjoy it. I took a quick picture (to prove I had gone all the way to Bondi from Coogee), turned around and headed back the way I had come!
I thought I would run home, but it was not to be. My knees could handle no more by the time I got to the first beach on my journey home, Tamarama. I could still walk, thank goodness! (I hadn't planned on how I would get back in the event of a knee failure). It wasn't such a bad thing, as my knee problemo allowed me the opportunity to "stop and smell the roses," or in this case, the beaches.
Each beach has something different to offer. Bondi Beach (1st & 2nd photo) is huge and busy! There are a lot of tourists and surfers... and as of recently, sharks! The "hit" tv show, "Bondi Rescue," is filmed here, which Kurtis and I are addicted to watching on DVD! They average 2000 rescues a year, and the beach is more or less empty from May to September! Many people coming to the beach are non-swimmers and on top of that, do not understand the dangerous riptide areas.
I began heading home, past Mackenzies Bay (not so much a beach as a little cove), to Tamarama Beach (my knees didn't make it very far, did they?). The surf at Tamarama is pretty rough, so people don't swim here as much as at the other beaches, making it popular for surfers. There is a cute cafe here and a nice grassy area (perhaps I'll be back for a picnic someday!).
I continued to Bronte Beach, which has a nice sandy area at the water's edge, swimming pool (ocean water filled), and cafe. As I was running by this beach there was a movie or tv show being shot and there were groups of older people standing around pretend fruit stands in old fashioned clothes. I should have been looking for "stars", but I couldn't even look at them in all those hot heavy layers!
Not so far from Bronte I came upon the same cemetary I had passed through on the way. The Waverly Cemetary was established in 1877 and is the resting place of some very famous Australian writers. It is very large, and I have to admit that on the way back I took a shortcut. It may sound gruesome, but it was actually really neat to look at the old tombstones.
Across Shark Point I walked until I reached the next beach, Clovelly (rhymes with "belly"). This beach is unique: a very long and narrow strip of water lined on either side with cement. Sun-worshipers come to lay here on the weekend. At the end is a quaint beach where families set up pup tents to shelter their kids from the sun. (We enjoyed lunch there just this past Sunday at the "Seasalt Cafe" before catching some sun on the cement decks).
Gordan's Bay was to follow on my walk. There is not much of a beach here (lots of debris washes up on the small strip of sand), but the rocks on the sides of the bay are very large and sunbathers can be found on every rock on the weekends. Fishermen also come and fish off the rocks, but from the little fish I have seen in their buckets it really doesn't seem worth it! This is also a very popular place to scuba dive as there is an underwater nature trail that you can follow along the bottom! We have not dived here yet, but last weekend we did go for a snorkel! Just a 10-minute walk from our house, it is an easy place to get to carrying our fins, masks and snorkels! The water is fairly shallow and we saw many different fish, always keeping an eye out for the stinging bluebottle jellyfish! We swam up to some little kids who were also snorkeling and they taught Kurtis a little trick: soon he was holding his breath and swimming under the water to pet a big grouper fish! I preferred to watch from the surface as I found the grouper fish to be a bit skittish for my taste.
Well, back to my walk: Finally I came to "our beach," as we happily call it. Coogee is smaller than Bondi, but bigger than the other beaches and bays (last 2 photos). There is a strip of cafes and restaurants, as well as some backpacker hostels and fancy hotels on the same street as the beach. During the week it is not too busy, but on weekends we usually have a good crowd out of tourists and people coming out from the city to enjoy the sun, water and sand. As fall approaches fewer people are headed to the beach, as the water gets colder, and the days become shorter.
It was a beautiful run/walk, but I was very grateful to be back home where I could finally put on my bathing suit and cool off at "my" beach! Next time I head out for a run in 25 degree heat I will not forget to pack a bathing suit!
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