Australia Day 21 – Bondi to Coogee coastal walk on a cloudy day and the ANZAC memorial

Thursday 29th December 2022

We started the day with a brunch of pan fried dumplings, which we’d bought frozen from Aldi. They were good, but nowhere near as nice as the frozen pork and prawn wantons we had earlier in the week.

We got the train from Chatswood into the city, then a bus to Bondi beach. It was quite a cloudy day, which suited us just fine – I’m not sure we’d have wanted to do this walk in the full sun as there’s not much shade.

Bondi beach was smaller than I was expecting, but still quite a majestic looking beach.

The costal walk was beautiful, and we passed by many interesting looking bays as we walked between Bondi and Brontë beaches.

After Brontë beach, the path goes past the heritage listed Waverley Cemetery. Apparently it’s one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world and it’s certainly impressive to walk past.

We discovered a highly rated Bahn Mi place in Coogee (Hot Rolls Vietnamese Takeaway), so obviously had to give it a try. The Bahn Mi was very tasty, with a very generous amount of filling. It didn’t quite taste like the ones we had in Vietnam (quite a lot of sweet tasting sauce) but was delicious all the same.

We took the bus back into the city and got off at the ANZAC memorial. It’s an impressive looking building so we were planning on having a quick look around. However it’s actually got an entire museum underneath the memorial, so we ended up spending much longer there. The museum is free to enter, and is very informative – it’s a great place to visit if you’re got an interest in history or war.

We next walked to Maybe Sammy, a cocktail bar not too far from Circular Quay. Between 4.30-5.30pm it’s happy hour and they offer a small selection of mini cocktails for $7 (about £4). I very much enjoyed my mini jasmine negroni. They also give you olives and spicy nuts when you order drinks, which was a nice touch.

After enjoying our drinks, we headed back to the hotel for some more New Zealand planning and an early night.

We weren’t particularly hungry so didn’t bother cooking a proper dinner and instead put the rest of the part baked baguettes in the oven which we enjoyed with the remainder of our olive tapenade (and obviously a nice glass of Aussie red)