The Bondi to Coogee Walk extends for about 6-kilometers from Bondi South to Coogee in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. It takes about 2-hours from Bondi to Coogee, that’s just a steady pace walking, at a reasonable pace without too many stops. Most people, like to just draw that out a little bit. There are a stack of places that you can stop, places for a swim, for a coffee, for drinks, something to eat along the way, so if you prefer you can draw it out and take up to half a day or longer if you like.
I prefer to make the walk twice, say if you started at Bondi, walk all the way to Coogee, stop there for lunch or a quiet drink in one of the restaurants or cafes there, then turn around and walk back in the afternoon. This can make a very pleasant habit.
The Bondi to Coogee Walk is very easygoing, and, you don’t need too many intensive preparations. The walk is well sign posted, it’s pathways all the way, so you can’t really get lost. There are plenty of places to stop for food and drink along the way. The going is pretty straightforward, there’s some uphill and there’s some downhill, but nothing too strenuous for your average person of reasonable fitness.
What are you likely to see if you travel the Bondi to Coogee Walk? Well, if you start at Bondi, you’ll walk past the Bondi Icebergs, and pass to the south up onto Mackenzies Point. This is a point that looks over to the North, so you can see North and South Bondi, to the south you can look all the way down to Maroubra Beach in the distance. There are some pretty spectacular views, and if you have a look around up there at Mackenzies Point, there’s actually some old aboriginal carvings of a whale.
It takes some looking around or asking around, but these are amongst the first Aboriginal carvings that were reported in Australia.
If you keep walking south and you enter a gradual downhill, and the very beach first that you’ll come down to is called Tamarama. This beach is also known as Glamarama because of the large abundance of movie stars and the rich and famous that like to hang around there. This is a very small beach, used mostly by locals, and the well to do.
Tamarama has a little bit of a surf there and at times it can be a little bit rough and dangerous. Tamarama’s a patrolled beach in a nice spot.
If you keep walking south past Tamarama, you’re up a gentle rise, over the crest and down into a beautiful beach called Bronte Beach. This is my favorite of the beaches that you’ll likely encounter on the Bondi to Coogee Walk. Bronte’s a very picturesque beach. It’s nowhere near as big as Bondi, but it’s got a very large grassed area immediately behind it on the promenade. It has a particularly large surf, but again, it’s well patrolled and if you swim between the flags, you shouldn’t have too many problems.
Bronte Beach has a large café strip as well, there’s some great cafes up there along the southern side. It is a great spot to stop for breakfast or coffee, if you’re that way inclined.
Once you finish through Bronte, you’ll keep walking south and you’ll notice only the side that the rock has been carved away to make way for the road. The walls are 15 to 20 feet high on either side. That is where the trams used to be back at the turn of the century. That rock was moved away so the tram line could run to Bronte Beach.
Waverley Cemetery has got to be the cemetery on the most expensive real estate in Sydney. It’s a really dramatic coastline, and the views are amazing, so just looking along the ocean you’ll see you’ll see this very large cemetery over quite a few acres, on your right hand side. Waverley cemetery is home to a lot very famous Australians People like Henry Lawson, a famous Australian Poet, Victor Trumper, who played a fair bit of Cricket and was batsman of some renown, Lawrence Hargrave, Henry Kendall, and many others have found their final resting places at Waverley Cemetery.
Past Waverley Cemetery is Clovelly, which is a small but very sheltered beach. There’s not much to surf there at all, so if you’re into much more of a calm paddle then Clovelly is the spot to stop for you. Stop for a bit of swim there, there’s also an ocean pool as well, where you can get in and have a look.
After you cross the car park at Clovelly, you’ll walk up some reasonably steep stairs and from the top of the stairs, you walk down and into Gordons Bay. Gordons Bay is an interesting place. There’s not really a spot for swimming, there’s no beach, but it’s a very popular snorkeling and scuba diving area.
There is an underwater nature trail,so if you like Scuba diving, Gordons Bay is actually a really good, convenient local spot in Sydney. You follow a chain around there, and it is a very good dive. The dive is fairly shallow and divers probably wouldn’t get much more than 12-meters in depth. This means from your average tank you’ll get around an hour on the bottom.
Finally if you walk down to Gordons Bay and crest you’ll come down into Coogee and Coogee Beach. This is a great spot, which you’ll approach from the north, down into Coogee Beach. There are lots of cafes, lots of restaurants, lots of hotels, good places to stop for a beer, something to eat and everything else you could desire. From Coogee you can turn around and walk back if you like, or you can get a Bus 353 back to Bondi Beach.
If you really want to do what the locals do, then get amongst the Coogee to Bondi Walk because it’s a great walk and a great way to showcase some of the eastern beaches of Sydney.
This article is taken from an episode of “The Sydney Visitor”, the definitive podcast guide to visiting Sydney Australia. www.thesydneyvisitor.com.
The Sydney Visitor 