Bondi to Manly Walk, Sydney

Prelude

We plan to walk from Bondi to Manly over three consecutive days, setting out in the wake of the March equinox as night begins to give ground to the light. We’ll start at one famed Sydney beach and follow the shoreline for 80 kilometres to another. 

At the right time of the year, you can spot whales as you walk, although the only ones we’ll see are the Buri Buri symbols adorning the waymarkers that guide our path northwards.

We’ll traverse headlands with sweeping views of the cerulean-blue Pacific Ocean, wealthy north shore villages, sandstone cliffs, remnant bushland, and the bays and beaches of Sydney Harbour National Park.

Day 1: Bondi to Milsons Point (35 km)

Bondi Beach, just after sunrise. Walking down the grassy slope to the beach, the spectacle is remarkable to those of us from colder climes. The water is awash with surfers and swimmers, few of whom wear wetsuits. Tanned yogis line the concrete path above the beach, saluting the sun. The ocean glitters. The sky is bruised with storm clouds rolling in from the plains. At the south end of the beach, waves crash over the Bondi Ocean Pool, a rectangle of pale turquoise in the translucent light. 

Following the white arc of sand to a rocky headland, we turn northwards and take the cliff top walk that leads to South Head. We glance back to reassure ourselves that the scene on the beach is a normal, magical early morning on Bondi Beach and not a shimmering mirage.

A little further on, we find a series of Aboriginal rock carvings depicting various fish species. More than 6,000 drawings once existed in Sydney, most carved into sandstone rock faces. Many have vanished without a trace. The engravings we’re looking at were re-grooved in the 1960s in a well-meaning, but misguided, attempt by the local council to preserve them.

Cliffs marked by the rippled passage of ancient rivers, sandstone outcrops, and hanging swamps. Coastal heathlands protecting blue wrens, honeyeaters and other small birds. Above us, a black shouldered kite on the hunt. A dizzying distance below, the ocean surges.  The sea where it meets the cliffs is opalescent.  

Further north is Dover Heights. From 1946 to 1954, it was one of the world’s foremost radio astronomy sites. CSIRO scientists built radio antennae on the cliff top to experiment with new ways of collecting radio signals. One of their astonishing discoveries was the detection of radio waves from distant galaxies. Since then, radio waves have helped us understand the cosmos, from the Sun and planets in our solar system to the most distant reaches of the universe.

Paperbark trees line the suburban streets leading down to the sea. A tour bus stops at Frisbee Hill; its passengers stumble out to take selfies in front of the panoramic view of Sydney, including the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. We pass Australia’s first and longest operating navigational light, Macquarie Lighthouse, vivid white against its green manicured grounds. The original lantern used whale oil lamps and produced a beam of light visible 35 kilometres to sea. In 1976, the light became fully automated and in 1989, the last keeper left the lightstation.

We continue along the Federation Clifftop Walk towards South Head. On the seaward side, container ships float above the horizon. On land are the playing fields and summer-bitten reserves favoured by dog walkers. We take a meandering bush track from Diamond Bay to the Gap, where sheer cliffs and spectacular ocean views thrill visitors. But it’s also a place with a sad history of suicides. The nearby Don Richie Grove commemorates a local ‘Angel of the Gap’. We pause to read about and reflect on Don’s work; the Australia Day Council honoured him with a Local Hero Award and said, “His kind words and invitations into his home in times of trouble have made an enormous difference … With such simple actions, Don saved an extraordinary number of lives.”

Past historic gun emplacements and the red and white striped Hornby lighthouse, the views from South Head are dazzling. Sydney Harbour to the west, Middle Harbour and North Head to the north, and the vast Pacific Ocean to the east. Waves crash onto rocks and drown waterfalls. 

Looping back around the headland, the weather breaks as we stop at the Camp Cove Kiosk for lunch. Rain falls intermittently for the rest of the afternoon. The water in the harbour turns inky as the storm clouds build and then clears to a glassy sea-green. Continuing around the coastline, we head west along a string of bays, harbourside beaches, and headlands splashed pink with wildflowers. Pastel-pink pelicans hang about the piers, waiting for an easy catch. 

Today, the sand and the tide conceal the engravings carved into the rock near the waterline at Milk Beach. At some of the beaches on the trail, shark nets are installed, not without controversy, to protect swimmers. Opponents of the nets argue they give swimmers a false sense of security and harm the ocean ecosystem. Last season, the nets caught over 200 species, including dolphins, turtles and rays. We observe that where there are nets, people swim inside them, and where there are none, they swim anyway. No one forgoes the pleasure of surrendering themselves to the ocean.

As we climb, we marvel at the Moreton Bay fig trees, their tenacious roots clinging to vertical rock faces. At the calm, secluded Hermit Beach, there’s no one but us to take in the view of all that light and all that water. We walk on, through the leafy, affluent neighbourhoods of Vaucluse, Rose Bay, Point Piper, Double Bay and Darling Point. Grand mansions with sweeping lawns hug the harbour. Ultra-modern houses rise sculpture-like from the sandstone cliffs. A garage with a million-dollar view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge houses two gleaming black Bentleys. Many of the already palatial dwellings are in the throes of renovation. The wealth on display is staggering. The Swifts, a heritage-listed Gothic Revival mansion, the grandest house of its era, is valued at $100+ million. Hidden amid this worldly fortune is the eerie cemetery where the nuns of the Convent of the Sacred Heart lie buried. Christ, hanging on the cross, overlooks their graves and, it is said, their ghosts haunt the neighbourhood

Bushland tracks and a rocky shoreline lead us to the inner sanctums of the harbour. Past Lindy Lee’s One Bright Pearl sculpture, lit from the inside at night to allow light to flow back into the world, and on to the Woolloomooloo sculpture trail. We continue to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair and through the Botanic Gardens to the Opera House, where we join the lively crowd for an end-of-day vino. 

This morning we woke up subdued, stilled by the sorrow in the world. But the wildness and beauty of the day buoy our spirits. Tired but content, we walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to Milsons Point and catch the ferry home. 

Day 2: Milsons Point to Taylors Bay (16 km)

We delayed the start of our walk this morning to visit our aunt. As a nurse and nun, she devoted her life to assisting the poor, but now she’s the one in need of care. Still the loveliest of people, it’s a pleasure to spend time with her.

It’s midday before we return to Millsons Point to start exploring the harbour’s northern shores. A fisherman casts his line within a stone’s throw of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The expanse of sun-splashed water and the view of the Opera House are his alone to savour.

We walk through affluent Kirribilli, taking in the Art Deco apartments, grand villas, and Victorian sandstone terraces. Edmund Barton, leader of the Federation movement and Australia’s first Prime Minister, once lived here. The suburb still provides a residence for the Prime Minister of the day and the Governor General. Their abodes, Kirribilli House and Admiralty House, sit next to each other on the tip of Kirribilli Point with commanding views over Sydney Harbour.

Past the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, we come to the intriguing ‘Sub Base Platypus’. The Navy chose the name because of the similarities between the shape of their submarines and the duck-billed platypus. Tracing our way around the shoreline and through the streets of Neutral Bay, we stop for a coffee at Nutcote, the harbourside home of May Gibbs. It’s now a house museum that pays tribute to the well-loved children’s author and illustrator, best known for her Snugglepot & Cuddlepie stories. 

Continuing along the narrow strip of vegetation that is Cremorne Reserve, we pass a seawater pool before coming to the tip of the prominent peninsula where Robertson Lighthouse stands connected to the shore by a footbridge. Before European settlement, these sandstone cliffs and secluded rocky overhangs provided shelter, fishing, and a place for ceremonial activities for the Cammeraygal people.  

One of Australia’s influential landscape artists, Arthur Streeton, painted at the nearby artist camp at Little Sirius Cove. His 1895 work, Cremorne Pastoral, was instrumental in saving the area from coal mining. In one of the earliest examples of aesthetic values winning over commercial interests, a court found that the beauty of the harbour depicted in the painting was beyond monetary value and worthy of preservation. 

Following the trail we walk on to Bradleys Head, a place to lose yourself in with its meandering bush tracks, lush vegetated gullies, stands of sinuous, pink-trunked angophora (Sydney red gums), and breathtaking harbour views. We come upon a bush turkey’s nest, made of leaf litter raked into a large mound by the male to attract females. Once the females lay their eggs, the male regulates the temperature of the mound by adding or removing material and protects the eggs from predators.

On the point of Bradleys Head is one of Australia’s first precast concrete lighthouses, and a mast from HMAS Sydney mounted in memory of sailors and ships lost at sea. From here, we take the Borogegal Walking Trail to Taylors Bay, a sheltered sandy cove where we end day two of our Bondi to Manly walk.

Day 3: Taylors Bay to Manly (30 km)

A bus to Taronga Zoo and a short stroll takes us to where we left the trail yesterday. Small sailing boats bob up and down in the slate-blue water of the bay; the clouds hold the possibility of rain. After traversing the palm tree-lined beach, we stop at Chowder Bay kiosk for morning tea. As Michael is about to eat his pastry, a kookaburra audaciously swoops in and steals it. The simpatico waiter replaces it, setting up a stealth game between bird and man until the pastry is no more. 

A marine habitat has been created in the bay at Clifton Gardens to help endangered seahorses flourish. The decline in White’s seahorses is largely due to habitat loss and degradation, so artificial habitats called Seahorse Hotels are being built to help their recovery. 

The yachts at sea are mere white specks on the vast expanse of ocean. Gaps in the trees between Georges Head and Middle Head give us glimpses of North Head Sanctuary and views of the entrance to Sydney Harbour. Small, pale yellow baubles daub the bush with colour; the flowers of the rare and endangered sunshine wattle. 

Middle Head once played an important role in the defence of Sydney. Among the military relics are remains of lookouts, gun placements, tunnels and ammunition stores constructed in the nineteenth century. They remained unused until the Japanese submarine attack on Sydney Harbour during WWII. From the lookout where we now stand, teenage boys who were ‘on watch’ reported seeing planes overhead. Their warnings were ignored, and the next night, three mini-submarines entered the harbour and sank HMAS Kuttabul with the loss of 21 lives. 

The rain comes minutes before we reach Balmoral Beach, sending the cockatoos and lorikeets into a frenzy and making a lie of the forecast of ‘silken seas’. We inhale the heady scent of petrichor, the fragrance of rain on dry earth. 

Areas lush with ferns, water dragons camouflaged on lichen-covered rock, thickets of coastal banksia framing the coves, and vegetation dripping with greenness. A string of lighthouses, including Parriwi lighthouse, built in 1911 in the Disney Castle style.

Clontarf lies across Spit Bridge, on the north-eastern side of Middle Harbour. During the depression in the 1930s, the area housed a tent city of several hundred homeless people. It’s now one of the wealthiest areas in Sydney, with a median house price of close to five million dollars. We join the Manly Scenic Walkway at Clontarf Beach, and between Middle and North Harbour, the path takes us through a stand of pink-barked angophoras to Grotto Point, a place of breathtaking sea views and ancient rock engravings. Here, etched into the sandstone, are images of humans, whales, small fish, a giant kangaroo, and boomerangs.

A little further along, high up on Dobroyd Head, we look down at a small settlement of shacks perched on the rocky cliffs of Crater Cove. The ramshackle huts were the haunt of fishermen and seekers of solitude and wild beauty from the 1920s. In 1975, the government evicted the huts’ occupants when Sydney Harbour National Park was created. Some of those evicted took their case to the High Court. They claimed that by living here, they acted as custodians of the cove. The High Court decided in favour of the government, and the evictions were upheld.

Water gums. Water dragons. Waterfalls forming after rain. A curving path leads us through the thick coastal scrub. The sky is darkening. Navigating rock-strewn beaches, we approach Manly. A sign painted on the footpath alerts us to Watch out, Penguins About. Manly is home to an endangered colony of Little Penguins, the only mainland breeding colony in NSW, although there are none about today. 

We walk on, past Manly Cove to Collins Flat Beach. It’s a calm anchorage for yachts and an idyllic swimming spot on a hot day. The trail takes us up a series of stone steps, through the parade ground of the Barracks Precinct and on to North Head, a place of wildness and mystery. 

The graves at the Third Quarantine Cemetery are half lost in a tangle of tall grasses. They mark the deaths of more than 240 people, including soldiers and nurses who survived WWI only to succumb to the influenza epidemic of 1918-1920. We nod to a famous writer, communing with ghosts as he roams North Head Sanctuary, a coastal park bordered by dramatic cliffs at the northern entrance to Sydney Harbour.  During WWII, this was one of the most fortified places in Australia. 

Flannel flowers with their creamy white petals flourish in the coastal health. They are one of more than 500 native plant species at North Head that provide a refuge for echidnas, reptiles, amphibians, insects, birds and an endangered population of long-nosed bandicoots. 

We stand at North Head looking out to a mackerel sea and a brooding sky, swooning at the elemental power of nature and the dazzling views. On our walk back towards Manly, we follow a track that weaves through a Hanging Swamp. This freshwater wetland is high above sea level and a mosaic of sedges, rushes, ferns and coastal shrubs. 

Eventually, we follow the path down to Cabbage Tree Bay. It’s lively with families splashing in the shallows. An old friend we met up with a few days ago told us stories of the creation of Cabbage Tree Bay Aquatic Reserve. The declaration of the area as a ‘no-take fishing zone’ was hard-won, and at one point, she was warned not to walk to her car alone after community meetings. The reserve is now home to a huge diversity of marine life protected for future generations. The Cabbage Tree Bay Eco-Sculpture Walk raises awareness of the bay’s marine species and includes sculptures of Little Penguins, Gloomy Octopus, Weedy Seadragons and the Eastern Blue Groper. Just a short distance along, the Fairy Bower Seawater Pool is watched over by two quite different sculptures. Titled ‘the oceantides’, the locals regard the poised figures as sea nymphs, Manly’s female spirits of the sea. 

Just on from the seawater pool is the iconic Manly Beach, a two-kilometre-long curved stretch of sand and sea. Blessed with brilliant surf, it hosted the world’s first surfing contest in 1964. Six decades earlier, it was the first place to legalise daylight bathing and spawn a beach culture for which Australia would become famous. 

At the end of a long, alluring day’s walk, we celebrate with a glass of wine before catching the ferry back to Circular Quay. It’s a languid late afternoon, suffused with golden light as the sun sets behind the Harbour Bridge. A Scandinavian backpacker basking in the beauty exclaims to his friends: ‘Never in my life will I be happier than I am right now’. We hope that’s not the case, but empathise with his euphoria on this one perfect day.

—————-

If you enjoyed our Bondi to Manly Walk, you might also like these short Australian walks: Sydney’s Seven Bridges Walk, Surf Coast Walk and Grampians Peaks Loop.