WALKING
ON WATER
Linking two of Sydney’s famous beaches, the Bondi to Manly Walk offers
Indigenous, colonial and contemporary perspectives on harbourside life,
along with stunning aquatic views
WORDS & PHOTOS BRIAR JENSEN
Milking the prime
location of Milk Beach
for all it’s worth.
WHEN I SAY I’m walking from Bondi to Manly, I get two
responses: “How long will that take, a day?” or “Blimey, how
many days will that take?” Both answers speak volumes about
Sydney’s geography and people’s perceptions of it.
As the seagull ies, it’s only 11km from Bondi Beach in the
south to Manly Beach in the north, or 23km if you’re driving.
But following the foreshore via Sydney Harbour and Spit
bridges, it’s a whopping 80km on foot. The route meanders
between beaches and bushland, city and suburban streets,
taking in Indigenous, colonial and military sites. Given Sydney’s
terrain, there are also numerous hills and stairs to climb.
Many of the Eora nation’s harbourside pathways were
consumed in the colonial lust for waterfront property, leaving
isolated pockets of public foreshore. It wasn’t until 2019,
following unprecedented cooperation between government
agencies, councils and volunteers, that existing paths were
connected to create one epic city hike.
The Bondi to Manly Walk website (bonditomanly.com)
is run by volunteers and oers a route booklet and smartphone
app. I also recommend using Tara Wells’ denitive guidebook,
The Bondi to Manly Walk, available at bookstores. She spent her
honeymoon on the walk before it was formalised and reveals
fascinating facts in easy-to-read prose, while providing
directions, transport and accommodation details.
I tackle the walk over ve days, staying two nights at both
Circular Quay and Manly, but I recommend a more leisurely
pace (see ‘Ideal itinerary’ on page 28).
BONDI TO ROSE BAY
Commencing at Bondi Beach Surf Life Saving Tower, I head
north and dodge joggers, dog walkers and mothers with
strollers. Autumn waves curdle and crash on the beach, closing
it for swimming, and wind knocks over the last of my coee.
I’m mesmerised by sea-green spume surging into North
Bondi Pool and miss the rst route marker, a yellow-on-black
Aboriginal design of mundoes (ancestral footprints) over a whale
silhouette. Signage is inconsistent, but with Tara’s book or the
app you can’t go (too far) wrong, the trickiest being detours
around private homes in prime waterfront positions.
Surprises come thick and fast. At the cli-hugging Bondi
Golf Course, sandstone peeks through clipped lawns to reveal
Aboriginal engravings of sh, sharks, whales and a possible
ancestral gure. It’s a magnicent location with ocean views
and a lighthouse-like tower that’s a heritage-listed sewer vent.
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Rose Bay was Sydney’s first
international airport, home
to Catalina flying boats
The rock-front stairs of Federation Cli Walk are under repair,
necessitating detours to reach its grassy clitops, which are
popular with professional dog walkers wrangling designer
breeds. Radar operated here during WWII and post-war the
CSIRO established an internationally acclaimed radio astronomy
site, making discoveries that revolutionised space exploration.
Dazzling Macquarie Lightstation (1883) sits on the site of
Australia’s rst lighthouse built in 1818. At Gap Blu the sandstone
escarpment plunges 80 metres to the sea where waves pummel
in a relentless roar. Infamous as a suicide spot, the clis are now
fenced o and helpline numbers are prominently displayed. It’s
heartwarming to read Tara’s account of local Don Ritchie who
saved many lives with his friendly smile and oers of help.
I drop down to Camp Cove, cornered in the lee of South Head,
where Captain Arthur Phillip rst set foot on Port Jackson. After
lunch at the colourful beach kiosk, I follow South Head Heritage
Trail. Jaunty red-and-white striped Hornby Lighthouse is
swathed in scaolding mesh while undergoing restoration. It
was built in 1858 following the wreck of the Dunbar that claimed
121 lives. In a tting twist to the story, the sole survivor and his
brother became lighthouse keepers there.
The harbour is awash with watercraft – kayaks, cruisers, racing
yachts, ferries and even a colossal cruise ship – as I head to Green
Point. In 1942, an anti-submarine boom net was installed between
Green Point and Georges Head, snaring one of three Japanese
midget submarines, which self-detonated to avoid capture.
After bustling Watsons Bay, petite Parsley Bay gleams like a
pearl in a green-lipped shell, complete with a necklace-like white
suspension footbridge. Once part of William Wentworth’s
208-hectare Vaucluse Estate, the place was protected for public
use, along with other waterfront sections, thanks to sailor William
Notting whose campaigning in the late 1890s led to the Foreshores
Resumption Scheme. Vaucluse House is now a museum.
The Hermitage Foreshore Track feels like a wilderness nature
trail, with city vignettes glimpsed through she-oaks and wattles.
It passes miniscule Milk Beach, which is the perfect place for a
picnic beneath the grounds of Strickland House. Rose Bay,
where I catch the ferry to Circular Quay, was Sydney’s rst
international airport, home to Catalina ying boats.
The 21km journey makes me grateful the Four Seasons Hotel
is so close to the Quay and overjoyed my room has a bath.
After a soak, I relax on the banquet window seat and head
to Executive Lounge 32 for a complimentary prosecco with
harbour vista. I’d planned to dine at in-house Mode Kitchen
& Bar, but graze on the lounge’s hors d’oeuvres instead.
ROSE BAY TO NEUTRAL BAY
The morning ferry to Rose Bay takes 13 minutes. It will take me
over ve hours to walk back. From busy New South Head Road,
it’s into Point Piper, Sydney’s most expensive suburb. An army of
maintenance workers tend properties that boast names as well
as numbers. Views are only glimpsed through gates, but Tara
recommends tiny Du Reserve, “At the bargain cost of 97 stairs.”
I’d argue it’s 100, but worth the workout for its unimpeded vista.
I’d never heard of Seven Shillings Beach and sense the leathery
local in speedos setting up his deckchair wants to keep it that way
after ignoring my salutation. Not so at netted Murray Rose Pool,
where everyone’s as cheery as the murals next to Redleaf Café.
I follow Double Bay Tree Trail through Blackburn Gardens,
watch ski sailors rigging up beneath Moreton Bay gs in Steyne
Park and ogle superyachts at Rushcutters Bay. Another of Tara’s
gems is McElhone Reserve in Elizabeth Bay, an emerald oasis
with koi pond and frangipani-framed vistas.
Suddenly I’m in the city negotiating school excursions and
cruise ship passengers around Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, the
Botanic Gardens, Opera House and The Rocks. Before crossing
the Harbour Bridge, I climb the 200-plus steps to the Pylon
Lookout & Museum, worth it for the views alone. Jutting into
the water at Milsons Point is a section of bow from the original
HMAS Sydney. Later I’ll see its mast at Bradleys Head, erected to
commemorate Australian ships and crew lost in combat.
“Sure, go for it,” says the policewoman when I ask if I can
photograph Admiralty House gates. Equally surprising is slender
Lady Gowrie Lookout next to Kirribilli House, terraced down to the
water. Sub Base Platypus, once a torpedo factory and submarine
base, is now a contemporary work and recreation hub. Nearby
Neutral Bay’s Anderson Park was famously used by aviator
Charles Kingsford Smith as a makeshift runway for his Lockheed
Altair, Lady Southern Cross, in 1934. After walking 22km, I could
do with a ight home but settle for the Neutral Bay ferry.
At Four Seasons’ Grain Bar, manager Marco explains their
eucalyptus-infused bespoke gin was developed with Bondi
Liquor Co, so I order their gin-based ‘In Like Flynn’ cocktail.
I add a charcuterie and cheese board and call it dinner.
NEUTRAL BAY TO BALMORAL BEACH
I breakfast on the balcony of the quirky Thelma & Louise café at
Neutral Bay Wharf. Other nuggets nearby include May Gibbs’
Nutcote museum and a rose-covered nature strip at Kurraba
Point by award-winning grower Mark McGuire. Cremorne Reserve
edges the peninsula with pockets of bush full of birdsong,
sculptural g tree roots, and the Lex and Ruby Graham ‘guerrilla
garden’ they coaxed from weed-infested public foreshore. At
Robertson Point Lighthouse I meet the wryly named ‘Walkers
Without Walkers’ on their weekly 10km morning amble.
I grab lunch for later from Mosman Wharf and continue to
Sirius Cove, where artists Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton,
among others, lived under canvas while painting en plein air (in
the open air) in the 1890s. Skirting Taronga Zoo on the path
beneath statuesque Sydney red gums, there’s plenty of wildlife:
eastern water dragons, brush-turkeys and even a green tree
snake. Military history abounds here. Bradleys, Georges and
Middle Head are a maze of fortications and Taylors Bay is
where two navy-requisitioned Halvorsen cruisers depth-charged
the second Japanese midget submarine.
After 20km it’s late when I descend the staircase to Balmoral
Beach. I’d planned to reach Spit Bridge and bus it to Manly, but I
Uber from Balmoral instead. At Manly Pacic Sydney MGallery
Collection, it’s straight to the rooftop pool to cool o, then a
street-side table at bar 55 North for dukka spiced burrata washed
Clockwise from middle left:
Georges Head Battery was
built to protect the outer
harbour; morning ablutions
beside the path; sandstone
cliffs at The Gap; on the Spit
Bridge to Manly walking trail;
a sunrise from the balcony at
Manly Pacific; the idyllic view
of Mosman Bay from
Cremorne Reserve.
Wild conditions close
Bondi to swimmers
at the walk’s start.
The morning sun warms
souls at Balmoral Beach.
Looking north over the
Harbour Bridge from the Pylon
Lookout & Museum.
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down with a Paloma Spritz. My balcony room overlooks the beach
and I watch the foot trac before bed, listening to the surf as I
drift o and wake to a sunrise through the Norfolk pines.
BALMORAL BEACH TO MANLY
Breakfast is at Bistro Manly before catching another Uber back
to Balmoral. People chit-chat under the g trees, bathing-
capped bodies bob through the water and a couple of bronzed
gents on the sand hold plank positions long enough for rigor
mortis to set in. The charming esplanade is ornamented with a
columned rotunda and arched footbridge to Rocky Point Island.
On the far side of Spit Bridge, the route follows the Spit to
Manly Walk, past sandstone overhangs dripping with ferns. In
the 1860s spacious Clontarf Reserve housed a dance hall and
pleasure gardens, but it’s infamous for the 1868 assassination
attempt on Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh while he was the
guest of honour at a picnic. Today, people are painting en plein
air, swimming their dogs and learning to sail.
The whole headland beneath Balgowlah Heights is part of
Sydney Harbour National Park and Aboriginal engravings reect
the importance of this area to the Gamaragal people. Kookaburras
cackle from the trees, native owers ourish along the track to
Grotto Point Lighthouse, and the low coastal heath allows views
to North Head. From Dobroyd Head it’s downhill to bush-fringed
Reef Beach, Forty Baskets Beach and on to Manly Wharf.
The next morning, I traverse the former gas works of
Little Manly Point to quiet Collins Beach and climb the hill
to North Head Battery. This is a remembrance site, with the
Avenue of Honour and Australia’s Memorial Walk, as well as
the Third Quarantine Cemetery housing those who succumbed
to inuenza, smallpox and bubonic plague.
Accessible Fairfax Walk has two stunning new lookouts.
Burragula, meaning ‘sunset’, provides a sweeping panorama
to South Head and down the harbour. It’s hard to believe I’ve
walked it all as I continue through endangered eastern suburbs
banksia scrub and hanging swamp. With scant shade, I’m about
to combust when I reach Cabbage Tree Bay Aquatic Reserve.
After changing in a sweatbox of a portaloo (a new amenity
building is opening soon), Shelly Beach refreshes like a G&T
and I lament not allowing time for a swim every day.
The nal stretch passes Fairy Bower, a rockpool created
by locals in 1929. At Manly’s ocean beach the carnival-like
atmosphere of a Nippers State Championship marks the end of
my journey. On the NRMA-owned Manly Fast Ferry back to Circular
Quay, I buy a celebratory pinot gris. The catamaran zips across
the water, concertinaing my ve-day harbour circumnavigation
to 20 minutes – hardly enough time to nish my wine.
IDEAL ITINERARY
Seven to eight days is recommended, starting in the early
morning and walking 10-13km. Walk mid-week when it’s quieter
and use the weekend for visiting museums or taking tours.
Stay four to ve nights in the city utilising ferries and three to
four nights at Manly with bus rides to and from Spit Bridge.
Day 1. Bondi Beach to Watsons Bay Wharf (13.7km)
2. Watsons Bay Warf to Double Bay Wharf (11.3km)
3. Double Bay Wharf to Milsons Point Wharf (12.8km)
4. Milsons Point Wharf to Taronga Zoo Wharf (10.4km)
5. Taronga Zoo Wharf to Spit Bridge (12km, bus to Manly)
6. Spit Bridge to Manly Wharf (10km)
7. Manly Wharf to North Head & Manly Beach (10km)
Or do it in stages, one day a week or month.
Away from the Manly crowds
at quiet Collins Beach.
Sydney’s iconic cliffs
along North Head.
The walk over Dobroyd Head
before reaching Manly.
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