Bondi Beach: A Look Under the Surface

Cool tattoo, cool board

For the five or six months I spend each year in Sydney, I’m happily lodged in a small but unbelievably well located flat (Americans would say apartment) right across the road from Bondi Beach, Australia’s most famous strip of sand. Bondi is only a kilometer or so long, but it’s a magnet that attracts both an intensely loyal bunch of locals and a wide-eyed and never ending stream of tourists, eager to know what the fuss is all about. It’s impossible to take a walk along Bondi without seeing something that will instantly strike you as new or beautiful or weird or crazy or talented or… well, you get the picture. Here’s a snapshot of some things I noticed during my most recent visit…

Surf Culture

OK, surf culture is kind of obvious at Bondi, but the depth of it is unreal, with many sub-genres in existence. Here’s three you might not notice unless you look for them:

1. The recently minted tourist surfer
They’ve done three lessons with “Let’s Go Surfing” and bought their own board. Unfortunately the lessons were mostly in two-foot waves, and the new board has a sharp, pointy nose. So, imagine being out there on a five-foot wave with one, no — let’s say six! — of these guys, they’ve all been out drinking the night before, they’re slightly aggressive at the best of times anyway, and they weren’t paying attention during the lesson on “sharing the waves.” You get the picture, right?

Clubbies take to the water

2. The clubbie
Mostly seen in the early mornings — before 7:30am, say — or anytime at all on a Sunday morning, when the Surf Lifesaving Clubs literally take over the beach. Look out for well tanned blokes in little red speedos running down to the water with a surf ski under their arm, then disappearing for an hour as they paddle around to Bronte. On Sundays there’s all sorts of organised competitions or training, and on certain weekends clubs from other beaches visit Bondi for a full-on carnival. Expect beer consumption to peak later in the day. If you’re wondering why the clubbie is an important species, hang around at the beach long enough for a freak wave event and see what happens when two hundred tourists get washed out to sea. Very few people drown at Bondi; clubbies are the reason why.

3. Cool Japanese surfer-dude
A rare though not entirely uncommon breed, there’s usually one or two in the surf on any given day, but frankly they’re more interesting out of the water. Straight from Harajuku to Bondi, they have the coolest hair, the hippest clothes and the best looking friends. They sort of blend in when they pull on a wetsuit, so look for them on Hall Street instead. No-one is certain if they all surf, or just come down to look good and hang with their mates. Full marks for appearances, though.

The Shark Boat

No sharks, again

Sharks? Well, there hasn’t been a shark attack at Bondi since the 1930′s, when nets were first introduced. Few people notice the boat come in each week to check the nets, which seem randomly placed across the mouth of the bay.

There’s a lot of debate about keeping the shark nets, focused on what other species get trapped alongside the occasional shark. Authorities are unlikely to remove them, though, for fear that an attack will leave them open to litigation. In the meantime, enjoy Bondi knowing that should you be taken by a shark, you’ll be the first victim in almost 80 years…

Sculpture by the Sea

Big blue beach, big blue sculpture

From modest beginnings in 1997, this annual outdoor art event is now the biggest drawcard on Sydney’s arts calendar. And why not? With over 100 sculptures placed along the Bondi to Tamarama Beach walk, there’s probably no better way to spend a weekend morning in Sydney than visiting this impromptu seaside gallery.

In the early years some artists created pieces that were anchored or in some way interacted with the water. During the course of 18 days you’ll always get a big storm or two, and it’s tough seeing your work blown out to sea, so nowadays everything seems to be safely on land. If you’re in Sydney in November Sculpture by the Sea is un-missable. That may not be a word, but you’ll know what I mean.

Paparazzi

Everyday Bondi: Paparazzi lie in wait

The first thing I do when I get back to Bondi is make a cup of tea and a slice of toast with butter and vegemite, then sit in the sun-room and look out at the beach. I did just that couple of weeks ago, and spotted two very suspicious blokes skulking (yes, skulking) behind the bushes across the road. “Jeez, these blokes look like paparazzi,” I said to myself. Turns out they were, and they were stalking Rodney Adler, the high-profile businessman who’d been released from jail a few days earlier and was enjoying an espresso at Aquabar, a coffee shop downstairs from me. Bondi fact #1: Americans go to Disneyland to celebrate, but Sydney-siders go to Bondi.

Aquabumps

If you’re on the southern end of the beach around 6:30am on weekdays you’ll spot Eugene Tan, with his long lens and a serene gaze that seems to capture just about everything that’s interesting, colourful and cool. Two or three hours later, 25,000 people around the globe open Eugene’s newsletter, Aquabumps. It’s a daily dose of what the waves are doing, a couple of sublimely liquid surfer shots, the odd pretty girl in a bikini coming out of the surf, and anything else that catches his eye. That you could build a whole business around a newsletter with pretty much the same content options day after day after day says something about Bondi: it’s always changing, and always its same old beautiful self…

-Rod Cuthbert

Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s Sydney tours & things to do in Sydney, mate.