Cronulla

We woke up late due to a late night skype session with the family back home and no sooner had we roused ourselves from bed were we invited to go to the beach. A few of our housemates had just been to the farmers market and had returned home with crates of fruit and veg (10kg of mangoes for $10!) and due to the lovely day decided to visit a beach, which was perfectly timed as we were in the mood to visit a beach after the rainy Christmas day we had.

So we piled into two cars (Sean was test driving a customer’s car and Gary had one day left on his rental car) and headed to Cronulla, a beach in South Sydney. The journey took around an hour and a half, which together with our trip to Watson Bay in North Sydney for the Yacht Race reinforced how large an area Sydney covers. The drive was nice enough but nothing special, we just passed through suburb after suburb without catching a glimpse of the sea but the beautiful sunshine made up for the otherwise dull surroundings.

We parked up and headed on to the beach which we were surprised to see stretched the entire way around the coast up to the head which (from my very rough estimates) was 5km away. Despite being a boiling hot Saturday afternoon the beach was not that crowded – I guess such Saturday’s are as banal as rainy Saturdays for us in the UK – which meant we had a nice large spot for us to drop our things.

After dropping off our stuff I took a dip in the sea which was nice and refreshing and not as cold as Manly, Bondi, or Wattamolla but there was the added hazard of blue bottled jellyfish that littered the wet sands and sea. These guys were not likely to kill you like the irukandji or box jellyfish but as Sean found out they give you a burning itch after a sting.

We spent a nice afternoon lazing in the sun (after a while I took the added precautions of wearing my Aussie hat due to the risk of sunburn) before Nic and I went for a walk around the coastal path that took us toward a neighbouring beach. We spent half an hour chatting on a bench admiring the view before returning to our group who were by now ready to head back. It was a lovely day and gave us the opportunity to explore another of Sydney’s many beaches.