And then there were four!

It was finally the big day: the 10th annual bushwalkers' 42km Marathon Walk.

I thought it was going to  be a record turnout at first. The scenic and relatively flat course produced 12 enrollments. We were walking from Circular Quay to Maroubra, via South Head and Harbourside and coastal tracks. Lots of public transport around, easy food and drink availability, interesting sights galore.

Come Sunday morning there were seven starters. Five others had become suddenly unwell, or decided hard pavement walking just wasn't for them. It was a fabulous day for walking. A break in the rains we'd been having, clear blue skies, and beautifully cool.

We took lunch in a shady spot at South Head. You can see North Head in the background of the top picture.

Soon we were at the Gap, and the anchor of the wreck, the Dunbar.

Still seven of us as we arrive at the two-thirds mark: Bondi Beach. A lot of buses pass by Bondi Beach.

And sure enough there's only four of us after that.

Unusually, it's still daylight as we arrive at the destination beach: Maroubra.



All a bit too easy really!





Photo credits to unknown kind tourists for some images

Beaches

Slightly cooler weather today, and no rain, so I was out and about, pounding the footpaths of the eastern suburbs. My mission was to survey my coming annual 42.2km marathon walk, and the route took me past many of Sydney's most popular beaches - all doing a roaring trade. Here's Bondi Beach.












And Tamarama

 The next one is Bronte

Then there's the amazing concrete part of Clovelly Beach

I ended up at Coogee today. I still need to find another five or six kilometres for my big walk, and that will entail another beach or three.

Bondi to Coogee coastal walk

There's a nice easy six kilometre walk that links several of the best known beaches in the land. It's the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk, and I re-acquainted myself with it yesterday.

I tend to do the annual pilgrimage to the 'Sculptures by the Sea' exhibition every October. The walk from Bondi to Tamarama is very slow then, with the teeming hordes of sculpture watchers. Yesterday was much more relaxed.

Bondi Beach

Bondi Icebergs Club

Tamarama Beach. Closed yesterday, like many others, due to the wild surf resulting from Fiji's Cyclone Winston - the southern hemisphere's most powerful on record, it's been called.

Bronte Beach, 'birthplace of surf lifesaving clubs'.

Those photogenic Sydney sandstone cliffs

Waverley Cemetery, home to a few famous historical figures,including poet Henry Lawson. They've built a bypass recently, to divert the majority of coastal walkers along the cliff top at the front.

Clovelly Beach,  sand at one end, but Depression era flat concrete sunbaking decks either side.

Boardwalk above Gordons Bay

Gordons Bay

Approaching Coogee Beach you pass the shrine to the Virgin Mary, at the site of all the miraculous sightings of her on sunny afternoons since 2003.

Coogee Beach



   
 Looking north to Bronte, Tamarama, and Bondi

Sculptures by the Sea

October and November bring not only jacaranda flowers. There's also Sculptures by the Sea. Regular as clockwork these days, and just as scenic.

You have to make your way to Bondi Beach and walk the kilometre or two along the clifftop walkway to Tamarama, via Marks Park. You encounter over a hundred fabulous sculptures, all with a message to tell.

Not that you'll always figure out what the message is. The poster of the iceberg, "coming to a beach near you" is presumably a comment on global warming. Lots of washed up things, transparent boats, and tents on rafts, all implying to me a comment on asylum seekers and their plight. There's a collection of beehives, with miniature human dwelling units inside. There's a skeleton cycling up a narrow beam with a boulder strapped to his back, likely to fall off the end when he completes his mission. There's a pretty blue whirly thing on Tamarama Beach, entitled 'Look at Me'.

There's a big circular collection of red or yellow 'swim between the flags' flags. But the central zone is all red flags for danger.




All self-explanatory, I thought. But lots of the other works would have benefitted from me purchasing the catalogue, I guess. Next year I'll do that, and I'll find the time to spend a whole

day there, or at least time it so I avoid the enormous crowds, schoolkids especially. It's been quite a success story, the Sculptures by the Sea. Check it out.