A more-or-less perfect beach day was predicted for Sunday: mostly sunny and 28 degrees.  Although I was spending Thursday and Friday in Canberra at a bicycle tourism conference I put out a call for at least one beach-goer to join us.  We had reached 21 and would need a hand to make it work.

Things didn’t look good, we’d received a lot of regretful ‘no’s.  Then a twinkle of hope on Saturday from L1 and another from Dave M.  The day dawned perfect — sunny, warm – like Sydney’s entire summer had come at once.  L1 bailed but Dave was up for it so off we went.

We rode our bicycles to Burwood Station, caught the train to Wynard Station and got the L85 bus north to Dee Why.  

Dee Why is just about 30 kilometres or 18.5 miles from our home.

From the bus stop on Pittwater Road down to the beach is about a 10 minute walk through a residential neighbourhood dominated by low-slung red brick flats from the 1970s and ‘80s. 

Jim has often said, as we drive through Dee Why, that Dee Why is the Marrickville of the Northern Beaches.  I see what he means is that it is a bit more multicultural and a little less well off.  Or, as Dave would put it later in the day, ‘a bit of a ghetto and hot-spot for street crime’ – pointing out the main bus interchange as a place where a lot of robbery and fighting happens. 

Can’t say it reminded me much of Marrickville but for having similar style flats which were, as some are in Marrickville, a little over lived-in: lots of stuff on balconies, furniture-sized rubbish left behind on the kerb by departing residents, etc.

Dee Why is a lovely beach.  A grassy reserve with playground hugs the beach.  The park slopes down from the headland to the south which divides Dee Why from North Curl Curl – a lush green parkland with a healthy towering row of Norfolk Island pines.  A local road divides the beach and reserve from a retail strip: good-looking cafes, fish and chips and burger joints, sit-down Italian and Japanese amongst others.  The beach is wide and long; at the southern end there is a splash pool and lap pool and surf break off the headland which was offering good waves to a dozen surfers.

As this was Sydney’s one day of summer for the 2011/12 season there were literally thousands of people on the beach, in the reserve and flushing money through the tills of the cafes.  The last beach we visited that was this chockers was No. 6: Bondi Beach (18 April 2010) and, frankly, Dee Why was even more crowded. 

I had enjoyed Bondi in spite of, or perhaps because of, its busyness.  Dee Why, on the other hand, not so much – maybe it was the crowd, maybe because we’d arrived a bit late in the day and I was a bit hungry, maybe because we had other plans for later in the day. 

The crowd was made somewhat worse by the rough surf conditions and rips which left the flags only about 10 metres apart corralling hundreds of swimmers into one narrow stretch of sea.  The Surf Life Savers were on high-alert and we saw them go in to pull several people out.  Not all these were ‘rescues’ but at least one was as the ambulance came to treat a girl who, I think, had been dumped on a sandbar.  Their high-alert kind of added a tension to the scene.

Having had No. 20: Currawong to ourselves last week the difference couldn’t have been more stark.  Which added to my … not dislike of Dee Why but more, just, I wasn’t as relaxed as I’d have liked.  We spent about an hour on the beach – Mitch and Dave caught a few waves (and got dumped by a few as well), I went in up to my belly or so, we took some photos and people watched for a bit. 

Then I was too hungry to wait longer for food and we found a table outside of Sushi Kenzo: good warm, slightly salty edamame is a pretty perfect beach food, especially with a cold Asahi beer.  I had the California roll and Mitch the chicken teriyaki – all good.

Dee Why is in the local government area of Warringah; the state electorate of Wakehurst (Brad Hazzard, Liberal); and the federal division of Mackellar (Bronwyn Bishop, Liberal).

You can get a better look at these and other photos from Dee Why in my Sundays the Beach gallery on SmugMug. 

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Next up will be beach number 22: Delwood.

Sounds a lovely day.

Leaving home at 10:28am we encounter the first of several instances of good public transport karma the 400 is at the previous stop when we arrive at Burwood Road.  We run up the steps as the train pulls in to Burwood Station, wait a few minutes for the L90 and arrive at Palm Beach at 12:28.  I love that Sydney’s public transport system, somewhat faulty as it is, reaches so far and wide. 

Once the bus turns off Pittwater Road – which, as an extension of Military Rd is like other Sydney arterials with real estate agents, kebab shops and chemists interspersed with flats and houses — onto Barrenjoey Road, the bus is twisting and climbing from the ocean side then dropping onto the Pittwater side past big and bigger houses built cleverly into the side of the hill.  It’s green, green, leafy, subtropical fecundity everywhere; everywhere the houses and roads are not lording over blue waters dotted with expensive, private water craft.  It is hard to believe we are still in the same city as Croydon Park or that the Sydney public transport system readily and easily reaches this place.

Currawong Beach is about 54 km/33 m from home including a two kilometre ferry ride.

We’re about 25 minutes early for the next ferry to Currawong Beach so with a little time to kill we figure we won’t get a bad coffee in Palm Beach and head for Barrenjoey House – where for a mere $4 per we have very good short blacks served by vivacious staff.

We find a funny mix of people lingering around the Palm Beach Wharf.  Some ferries go from here to Ettalong – so while most folks are the sort of casually well off found in these parts of the Northern Beaches there are also some black-jean wearing, bearded, blue-tattooed Central Coastians about as well.  As we are heading to Currawong, long a summer destination for unionists staying at the NSW Labor Council owned cottages, the sprinkling of working class people amongst the six-figure cars in the lot feels right.

Our ferry to Currawong is a lovely, charming, wooden old thing staffed by an old hand and a young bloke who is still learning the skills of driving the thing.  The crossing is a bit choppy with a good wind going but sunny and warm with a smattering of clouds.  Mitch stands in the open hatch watching with envy the many sailing boats skimming north, sails full and leaning well into the wind.

I reckon the ferry spends most of its time at the wharves where weekenders load and unload.  We spend 10 minutes at The Basin Campground at Ku-Ring-Gai National Park with people loading all their camping gear on the ferry.  

I worry a little when we arrive at Currawong and find the jetty sign-posted as ‘private’.  But you can’t own below the high-tide mark so the beach is public even if the grounds are not.  There aren’t many people about: a couple of teenagers sunning on the pier, some smaller children joining them after the ferry left.  Later some kids, maybe the same ones from there pier, are lazily shooting hoops.  No one approaches us and we have the beach itself entirely to ourselves.   This is the first time since our visit to beach number seven, Bradleys Beach on Dangar Island (26 April 2010) that we have a beach to ourselves.

Currawong is a narrow beach, maybe a few metres deep, of maize-coloured sand backed by the manicured grounds of a summer camp.  Clusters of trees are here and there – if they were palms you’d feel someplace very tropical. 

The beach curves slightly and runs maybe 200 metres north of the pier and another 50 metres south.  The sand is weirdly soft – each footstep sunk five or more centimetres.  Well not each but most.  It is like walking on snow with an icy crust – sometimes it holds, sometimes you drop through.  Beyond the ends of the beach is bush which wraps toward rising headlands which lightly embrace the shallow bay of the beach.

The water is warm but I don’t go in beyond my calves as changing to my swimmers without shelter will be rather difficult – it’s a rather exposed beach with nowhere to hide. 

We picnic – bread, cheese, salami, apples – and lay in the speckled shade listening to the fast beating but very low waves pulsating ashore, the thrum of marine diesel engines, and the surprisingly regular aerial hum of the arrival and departure of the sea plane from Rose Bay. 

It’s hard to imagine a better way to separate the old week from the new than a quiet, restful visit to a beach.  Oh, and did I mention the cicadas?  I didn’t notice them for the first hour or so … so ubiquitous are they this time of year that a decidedly loud chorus of bugs escaped my notice.

We spend some time imagining the Currawong Cottages back in the days when it was a workers retreat of the NSW Labor Council – imaging blue-collar union workers and their families making their way to Palm Beach and across on the ferry.  Cutting something of a scythe through the entitled locals, I’m sure.  We imagine labourers from war-torn Europe, recently arrived in Australia in the 1950s, finding themselves in this idyllic place.  Fricking workers paradise or what?

We have hot, sweet tea and lamington fingers.  Take a variety of “20” pictures.  Watch departing guests leave on the 2:30 ferry.  And do nothing much at all, really, but relax.

When we see the 3:30 ferry making its way from Palm Beach we gather our gear and head to the wharf joining a couple more departing families.  The ferry back is already full of weekenders from The Basin but we nab seats at the front.  A pair of 11-year old girls are our companions – seated close enough to share i-phone ear buds and watch something on the little screen.

We round the northern headland and into the embrace of Mackerel Beach – million-dollar weekenders are crawling up the hillside and along the stretch of land leading down to the beach.  There is a big queue of people on the wharf waiting for the ferry.  More people join us on the front.  Words that came to my mind are: casually privileged, maybe ignorant of their privilege, but entitled.  Something about their clothes which are unnecessarily expensive – a t-shirt is a t-shirt; shorts are shorts – the difference between those purchased at Target and those purchased from a boutique is mostly price, rarely quality, or even the country of origin, or the way the workers are treated, but certainly the perception of ‘prestige’.

Back at Palm Beach we skip the 4:08 bus in favour of a cold beer and some of the best hot chips I’ve ever had.  

We get the 4:28; walk right onto a train at Wynard and directly on to a M41 at Burwood and are home by 6:35.

I’ve done a little research on Currawong Beach Cottages.  The camp seems to now be in the hands of private owners following some considerable controversy which surrounded their sale by the NSW Labor Council a few years ago.

But here are a few tid-bits about the Cottages history as a resort for unionists, all of this is taken from the NSW Heritage web site on Currawong:

The idea of affordable and improving holidays in natural surrounds took off after the Great War following the lead of camping, bushwalking, amateur fishing and national park movements. 

The development of purpose built ‘resorts’ by trade unions increased substantially after World War II.

Changes to labour legislation at this time also contributed. The Labor Government introduced two week’s annual leave in 1944 and a 40-hour week in 1947. James Kenny, assistant secretary of the NSW Labor Council advocated that families should be able to holiday with their families in affordable accommodation and he put to the Labor Council that a holiday camp should be established.

By the mid-1940s the progressive social programs of a number of unions included camps.

Kenny had begun to explore the possibility of providing low-cost holiday accommodation for union members since their two-week paid annual leave was introduced in 1944. After the end of World War II, Kenny negotiated the purchase of the Currawong estate from the Port Jackson & Manly Steamship Co Ltd for ten thousand pounds

Kenny worked tirelessly to develop Currawong, relying on the labour of colleagues, friends and family. Due to the deprivations arising from the war, development of the camp was initially reliant on donated building materials and the volunteer labour of unionists.

Gabrielle Carey included descriptions of Currawong in her novel ‘Puberty Blues’, which she co-authored with Kathy Lette in 1979.

One of the comments representing a widespread sentiment come from Siobhan Bryson whose extended family have been visiting Currawong for over 36 years. She stated: ‘it is a place which is safe for children, far from the usual commercial pressures of holiday resorts, full of bird and animal life, immersed in the ancient spirituality of the original custodians of the land, and strongly connected to the historical struggle for workers rights in NSW’. Marianne Lloyd stated: ‘1950s Australia captured and frozen within this little beach community… Holidays at Currawong are still about families and take you back to a time of firecrackers and a time when you knew all of your neighbours. Where children were safe outside in the evenings and parents had time to listen and be heard’ (Design Plus, 2003). 

Newspaper columnist Adele Horin has also described the appeal of Currawong in the following terms: 

‘It’s a Currawong ritual. Nightly at the Pittwater holiday retreat, the children take torches, gather on the big lawn by the dilapidated tennis court and play spotlight under the stars. There’s often a sizable gang, aged five to 13, unafraid of the dark, dashing in and out of the trees in this night version of hide and seek. 

‘But what makes the spectacle remarkable is the absence of adults. There is no need at Currawong for parents to hover in the role of chaperone. Parents are out of sight, beyond the trees, up the hill, sipping beer on the verandas of fibro cottages as the squeals of delight float up to them. At Currawong, kids rule. Even at night … 

‘For those unfamiliar with Currawong, it can best be described by telling you what it doesn’t have - no roads, no cars, no shops, no TV, no cinema, no restaurant, no amenities really at all, except the tennis court, the jetty for fishing, and a squishy golf course of sorts. There are nine fibro cottages (no inside toilet) and a historic homestead.

Unionists get priority, and the rents are reasonable. And as you gaze across Pittwater at the millionaires’ row of Palm Beach, you think Australia is the best country in the world. 

‘And for primary school-aged children, whose suburban lives are so circumscribed, it is heaven on a stick. No camping ground we’ve been to, no beachside holiday cottage, has provided the children with the same experience of independence, safety and community.’ (Sydney Morning Herald 8/5/1999, p45) 

A former manager at Currawong offered this memory of the place: ‘A very small child once urged my wife and me to “Come and see the gods”. He was very insistent so we accompanied him to the creek that runs through the property. Excitedly he said “Look at them - can you see them”. Floating on the creek were spiky grass balls being gently driven in different directions by the breeze. We rather unconvincingly said “Oh yes we see them”. The little boy who was only about four years old looked disappointed and said “Well they are not really gods - they’re more like symbols of God”. I have never forgotten that moment. Currawong is a very special spiritual kind of place that deserves to be retained for all people.’ 

I had hoped to find more archival photos of Currawong but this is the only one my search unearthed: The Baker Family at Currawong published by the Sydney Morning Herald on 9 February 2007.

Currawong is in the local government area of Pittwater; State district of Pittwater(Rob Stokes, Lib) and Federal seat of Mackellar (Bronwyn Bishop, Lib).

You can get a better look at these and other photos from Currawong in my Sundays the Beach gallery on SmugMug. 

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Next up will be beach number 21: Dee Why.

Coming soon … beach no 20, Currawong.

Friends came along on New Year’s Day to beach number 19, Curl Curl. 

Per Wikipedia:

The name Curl Curl appears to be the original Aboriginal name for the larger area of Manly Vale, Freshwater, Queenscliff. The name Curl Curl may have been derived from the Aboriginal phrase curial curial, meaning river of life.

We took the train to the city, collected Erin and her car and headed for the beach.  As with Cronulla we again hadn’t properly consulted the map before setting out and so managed to fly well past Curl Curl before realising our mistake.  The traffic, by the way, was utterly shitful.

Curl Curl is 28.5km/17.7mi from our home.

Arriving we found the beach crowded with New Year’s Day revellers, including our other mates Laura and Gavin.  But, disappointingly, the beach was closed – well not the beach but the water.  Due to big messy surf and ‘dangerous tides’ the Surf Lifesavers were busy waving people out of the water and occasionally going in to get them out. 

There is a sea pool at the southern end of the beach and it was full of kids and parents, teenagers and a few locals belligerently doing their laps through the crowd.

The day was blowy but clear and warm.  I erected the beach umbrella and relaxed in the shade – not really napping but listening to the surf pounding in and the not-quite-distinct conversation of neighbouring groups.

Erin went to check out the beach kiosk and came back with disappointment – no hot chips, NO BLOODY HOT CHIPS, on New Year’s Day, on the beach.  It was all healthy overpriced café food: burger $16.50, kids $10.  Please.

We stayed a couple of hours.  Wandered over to the pool – which was warm and crowded.  Took some pictures and called it a day.  Then we sat in hideous traffic on Military Road all the way back to the city.

Curl Curl is in the local government area of Warringah; State district of Manly (Mike Baird, Lib) and Federal seat of Warringah (Tony Abbott, Lib).

You can get a better look at these and other photos from Curl Curl in my Sundays the Beach gallery on SmugMug. 

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Next up will be beach number 20: Currawong.

We began our visit to Cronulla at Ham Harry & Mario where we had their breakfast plate: kind of a European deli take on the Australian big breakfast: prosciutto, avocado, sliced tomato, ricotta, boiled egg and good sourdough toast with a drizzle of olive oil over the lot. Tasty, filling and just a little bit different.  Coffees were good; service was fine given the busyness of the hour.

We’ve visited Cronulla once before in this project for beach number five, Blackwoods, back in March 2010.  Today we were visiting the main Cronulla beach and, as with Coogee a few weeks ago, we found it crawling with nippers.

For a fuller discussion of nippers and surf life saving see my last post.

Cronulla Beach is 22km/13.6m from home (our new home, so new measurements).

Like Coogee before it Cronulla is a familiar beach to us as we have been many times over the years.  The name is derived from kurranulla meaning ‘place of the pink seashells’ in the dialect of the Gweagal people (Wikipedia).

The coast line was explored and mapped by Matthew Flinders and George Bass in 1796 and European habitation began in 1835.

The train line to Cronulla was first built in 1885 and it is still the only of Sydney’s surf beaches serviced directly by the train which makes it accessible to a broader swathe of Sydneysiders than say Bondi or Manly.

The area is on a peninsula and is part of the Sutherland Shire. The Shire, as it’s known, has a reputation as a bastion of old mono-cultural (Anglo-Irish) Australia — the reputation seems to mostly be upheld by the people you see on the streets away from the beach: nearly all white, primarily northern European, but some Mediterranean people as well.

I’m trying to sidle up to the touchy and a bit complex issue of the 2005 Cronulla Riots.  I like this rather straightforward one-sentence definition offered by the Dictionary of Sydney:

Series of clashes and mob violence which escalated from a verbal confrontation between life savers and a group of young men of Middle Eastern appearance.

Frankly I don’t want to dwell on it and Wikipedia does a fine job summarising the events.  My two-cents: little in life is as black and white as mainstream media portrays it.  This event was fuelled, I think, by young men, pumping with testosterone, in a space of cultural conflict; add summer heat, lots of alcohol and the intentional fanning of the fires by race-baiters, shock jocks and tabloid journalists.  Oh and police caught off guard and unprepared for the chaos.  Ta da: Race Riots.  

I’ll admit to feeling a bit bad for the mainstream majority of Cronulla who were tarred as a bunch of red necks because of what happened.  Frankly I think train access means all of Sydney arrives on their doorsteps on hot summer days; our city is amazingly multicultural, which is wonderful, but that means within our population we sometimes have widely divergent standards of behaviour.  I have on good, trustworthy authority that there had long been conflict on Cronulla’s beaches around the way some groups of young Muslim men behaved toward non-Muslim women and girls.  It’s not a condemnation just a realisation that some conflict is natural in a multicultural society; the challenge is how we address and diffuse that conflict.

Let’s get back to nice pictures from the beach.

Cronulla Beach is in the Sutherland Shire, the state district of Cronulla (Mark Speakman, Liberal) and the federal division of Cook (Scott Morrison, Liberal).

I found this cool image on the Dictionary of Sydney website Saturday arvo, Cronulla, 1961 by Jeff Carter:

There I also found this fascinating story of the Shark Arm Murder … which I’ll leave for you to explore on your own.

If you’d like to get a closer look at any of my photos in this post please visit the gallery on SmugMug.

Next up will be beach number 19: Curl Curl.

Weather be damned we are going to beach number 18, Cronulla, on Sunday. I’m needing to watch the waves roll in and smell the salty air even if the temps don’t invite frolicking.

Damn you weather.  You and your unseasonably cool and rainy-self keeping me and mine from beach number 18 (Cronulla).  Yesterday dawned bright and teasingly warm but when I finally looked up from reading the paper dark and ominous clouds had gathered and would soon unleash yet another freaking rain storm.  Enough already.  12 December = Summer; I should be swealtering not wondering where the other blanket went.  Next Sunday looks likely to be crap too.  Boo.

They’ve improved this resource a lot since I last visited … good stuff.

We have visited the 17^th beach, Coogee, to officially get the 2011/12 beach going season underway.

We’re in the midst of the chaos of moving houses but I thought it important and worthwhile to breathe salty air, feel the sand in our toes, watch waves rolling in from the South Pacific and, as it turned out, bear witness to thousands of nippers participating in a surf carnival.  

For the non-Australians amongst you, or those not fully literate in Australian culture – nippers are children, specifically children participating in Surf Life Saving.  Surf Life Saving Clubs have been responsible for much of the life saving patrols done on Australian beaches since the early 20^th century.  They also do an amazing job teaching kids surf safety while they participate in the sport of Surf Life Saving — which incorporates swimming, paddle-boarding, running on the sand, etc.  The Coogee Beach Surf Lifesaving Club was founded in 1907.

We began our visit with breakfast at Morning Glory Café.  I had grilled haloumi cheese served with a poached egg on toasted sourdough with wilted spinach and a roasted tomato; Mitch had the big breakfast – scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, grilled mushrooms and a tomato, baked beans and Turkish toast.  All was good including the coffees.

After breakfast we got the toes in the sand and wandered amongst the masses to watch the nippers in combat.  What good fun!  Frankly it just doesn’t get much more Australian … well, in the sense that we could have been nowhere else.  Surf Life Saving is essentially peculiar to Australia.   If you are surrounded by little kids wearing swimming costumes with beach names across their bums and colourful cloth caps tied beneath their chins – well, you are in Australia.

Coogee Beach is 13.8 kilometres (8.6 miles) from home.  It’s a place I’ve been many times in the 11 years I’ve lived in Sydney – including celebrating Thanksgiving with a barbeque there in 2001 (perhaps).  Thanks to Midnight Oil I’d been familiar with a key geographic feature of Coogee Beach, Wedding Cake Island, since, oh, the mid 1980s.  But until I moved to Sydney I had no idea it was here … giving Coogee crappy surf.

Wikipedia has a lot to say about Coogee but here are a few key items.  The name may come from an Aboriginal word meaning ‘smelly place’ in reference, perhaps, to the kelp which washes up here and, if left uncollected, rots.  European life in the area began in 1838; the first school was built in 1863 but became the Coogee Bay Hotel in 1873 – a place where beach-goers have drunk themselves silly for 138 years now.  Coogee was the end of a tram line back when Sydney had trams (1883-1960).

On the headland on the northern end of the beach stands a memorial to the victims of the terrorist bombings in Bali, Indonesia on 12 October 2002.  The memorial is specifically dedicated to the 20 local residents, including six members of the Coogee Dolphins Rugby League Team, who were killed; all together 202 people died, 88 of them Australians.

Inland, also at the northern end, is Coogee Oval home to the Randwick Rugby Union Club (go the Galloping Greens) and the Randwick-Petersham Cricket Club.

Coogee Beach is in the City of Randwick, the state district of Coogee (Brice Notley-Smith, Liberal) and the federal division of Kingsford-Smith (Peter Garrett, Labor).