Douglas Goes to the Beach

It's about time Douglas and I went to the beach

We are in one of the best countries for beaches. Naturally I chose to go to the beach after peak beach time. In the near-fall. When it's not time to go to the beach at all. 

But there's been a nice few days at the start of this fall season that have been perfect for the beach. Particularly the past two weekends.

The first beach weekend I went to Bondi (bon-die) with my friend Maz. We spent the day relaxing, people watching, sun bathing, and generally doing nothing. It was the last day of her vacation, and she wanted to finish it off enjoying doing nothing. It was wonderful. And I got a few pictures of Douglas sunbathing as well. I didn't go into the water because the surf was particularly rough, but I did enjoy listening to the waves rolling in. We hung out at the beach for a few hours. Grabbed some dinner at a fish and chips shop and we headed back home in the evening. It was great!

A view of Bondi from afar. Beautiful beach, but very crowded.

Bondi is a very crowded beach, so mostly Douglas, Maz, and I hung out and soaked up some sun after a week of rain

The second beach time was when I did the Bondi to Coogee (koo-jee) walk. It's a six kilometer (almost four mile) walk through four different beaches. There's stunning cliff side views, massive waves, and beautiful scenery all around. It took roughly two hours to make the whole trek. I highly recommend the walk, but take tons of sunscreen, some water, and maybe a hat because there isn't much shade on the walking path. Luckily, since Australia is on the verge of fall, the weather was quite nice and even the walks through the sun weren't too bad.

Rain was in the forecast, so Bondi was relatively empty compared to the prior week's trip

It was also very windy, which made for some huge waves. You can't see how blue the water is here, but you can definitely tell in other pictures

That's a neat rock!

Some tourists and also a neat rocks!

It was starting to rain a bit, so Bondi looks very blurry from here. You can tell how empty it was. 

People often fish off the cliff side/rock sides. Not recommended. The surf is so strong here that if the fisherman is knocked off the rocks, his/her chances of survival are slim. It's also hard for the beach rescue to get to them because of the rough beach terrain

More Waves

Gotta give everyone some love at the public bathrooms at Bronte Beach.

Douglas was not impressed with Bronte beach, but I was!

A neato burrito orb weaver I spotted at Clovelly beach (this was my least favorite beach. Lost of concrete, not enough natural stone/beach)

Douglas and I hanging out!

Douglas admiring the view to Gordon's Bay. We took a wrong turn here and had to back track, but the rocks were gorgeous! You can see a huge wave hitting the rocks to the back right. 

The Coogee Bay from up top. The downhill walk was much needed after the uphill climb from Clovelly and Gordon's Bay

The Coogee Beach! Beautiful and not very crowded. I definitely would visit again.

The walk connects four beaches total: Bondi beach to Tamarama, Bronte, Covelly (there's Gordon's Bay between Covelly and Coogee, but there's no actual beach, it's mostly rocks and docks), and Coogee. In between Bronte and Covelly, part of the beach walkway/path were damaged from storms in July 2016. They're in the process of repairing the walkway, so the path detours through the Waverly Cemetery. It's a very large cemetery reminiscent of many of the cemeteries you see in New Orleans. Most of the graves were raised, most likely due to the water table being so low (like that in New Orleans). I didn't take any pictures because the walk through the cemetery was pretty somber and it didn't feel appropriate. Very humbling and pretty, though! It was sad to see some resting places falling into disarray, but such is life sometimes. 

The walk from Bondi to Coogee was beautiful and stunning. It gives you appreciation for the beaches of Australia. 10 outta 10, would walk again. 

Bonus picture of a business seagull on the docks by my office. I like to think seagulls walking really quickly on the docks are headed to important business meetings. This guy was thinking about commerce and flight planning.

A Seagull Meeting. They're getting ready to discuss their mergers and acquisitions. Merging into the water, acquiring people's food.