Sydney's famous Bondi Beach.
Bondi Beach is Australia’s most famous beach, and the place where Surf Lifesaving began – the Bondi Surf Lifesaving Club.
Bondi is a suburb just east of Sydney, and the famous beach is easily reached by bus from the city itself. There is also plenty of options for accommodation at Bondi, and close to or overlooking the beach area. This ranges from a classy Swiss hotel to a range of serviced apartments of varying prices and qualities, right down to the cheaper backpackers hostels. Except that few things are cheap at Bondi, thanks to its fame and popularity.
The beachfront road at Bondi has a wide range of shops and restaurants which look out over the famous beach. Parking is hard to find and not cheap, and the parking fines from the local council are rapacious. So you are better off catching a bus from the city via Bondi Junction, which is a terminus for buses and trains from Sydney. It also has an excellent shopping area, with offices and plenty of restaurants and cafés.
The Bondi Lifesavers’ social club is known as the Bondi Icebergs, and has an excellent but expensive restaurant at the south end of the beach. The view from the Icebergs’ dining room is quite breathtaking.
The Bondi Icebergs got its name because the club members fill their swimming pool with big blocks of ice and leap into the icy water in right at the height of the Aussie winter!
Bondi Beach is just under one mile (1 Km) long, and is patrolled by the famous surf life savers. These highly trained volunteers warn swimmers to stay between the yellow and red marker flags, which are moved every few hours. The flags mark an area where there are no rip tide currents, stinging jellyfish or other dangers.
Bondi Pavilion
Bondi Pavillion, located in the center of the beach, has public toilets, showers & changing rooms. It also boasts a theatre, an exhibition gallery and an outdoor amphitheater. The Pavilion has function rooms, a café and a gift/souvenir shop.
Bondi is one of the most beautiful stretches of beach in Sydney, and there are some lovely cliff-side walks from Bondi to its neighboring beaches.
It has a 4-and-a-half star rated residential hotel, The Swiss Hotel Grand, several pubs (bars) and a host of small shops, restaurants and cafés. Its a pleasant experience to sit at a table on the pavement and just watch the world go by.
On the weekend, there are markets at the north end of the beach selling all kinds of clothing, books, jewellery and local crafts.
How to get to Bondi: Buses run to the beach at about 10 minute intervals from Bondi Junction. Services are less frequent after about 7:30 pm at night, with buses every 15 minutes until midnight and, as your last resort, a bus runs every hour all night. On Friday and Saturday nights there are buses every half hour all night.
The railway station at Bondi Junction is about 2 miles back from the beach. The train service is supposed to run every 10 minutes on weekdays, and every 15 minutes at weekends. All buses from the beach to the city go via the railway station at Bondi Junction.
For more timetable and route information on Sydney buses visit Sydney Buses at www.sydneybuses.info. For ferry information visit Sydney Ferries at www.sydneyferries.info. For train information visit CityRail at www.cityrail.info. Picture Credit: Image via Wikipedia.
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