Hi there,
In this post I am going to tell you about the places we visited during our home exchange in Narrabeen.
Narrabeen Beach
This beach was 5 minutes away from our accommodation.
It is wide and in total you can walk 7 kilometers. On both sides of the beach there are saltwater pools for public access as there are almost always poisonous jellyfish and dangerous currents in the sea.
There are a couple of areas of the beach where you can always swim between the flags.
Narrabeen Lagoon
This lagoon was also a 5-minute walk from our house.
There is a trail of almost 10km that goes around the lagoon. It has very nice parts where you are surrounded by nature, but in other parts you are on the side of the road and because of the infernal traffic of Sydney, it becomes annoying.
The lagoon is not suitable for swimming because it is contaminated with sewage. In fact, at several points along the route it smells bad. Even so, it is not bad for walking or jogging.
Sydney
This visit was during our first weekend.
Since the 2 people who had just arrived at our house a couple of days ago kept complaining about nonsense and being rude, we asked them if they wanted to cancel the exchange. We were totally willing to go back as long as we didn’t have to deal with them anymore.
So, if we had to go back, we had to at least see Sydney. So, on our first Saturday we took the bus that gets to downtown in about an hour.
The first thing that struck us was that everything was dirty.
Everything was full of people and at 9AM it was already unbearably hot. This day we got sunstroke.
After seeing the Opera House and touring the botanical gardens, we went downtown for lunch. You can’t imagine the sea of people.
When I arrived in Australia, I was expecting to see those spectacular two-meter blond people and in Sydney I didn’t see one. Ninety percent are Asian, and the rest is between Australians and immigrants from other countries.
Grand Canyon – Blue Mountains
This place was a two-hour drive from Narrabeen.
When we arrived there were few people, but within an hour it was very crowded and there were even moments when people crowded the trail.
We arrived between 9 and 10 in the morning and if you want to enjoy the place without people, it is better to arrive much earlier.
We did a circular route of about 10km. The route is beautiful and in many parts, we felt like in an avatar movie; the only thing I didn’t like is that almost all the trail was made of cement (it reminded me of Madeira).
Something incredible is that at noon when we were leaving, there was an impressive traffic jam, even being in the middle of nowhere.
Bondi Beach. Bondi to Coogee – Coastal Walk
We went on a weekday morning and were surprised to see so many young people who should be working.
The area, compared to anything we had seen so far in Sydney, was a bit ugly and looked like a low-income area.
Parking in the area costs 10AUD per hour.
We started by doing the Bondi to Coogee route which is a road that goes along the coast, and it was almost 11Km in total.
The road is all cemented and at some points you go along the side of the road. Here you could already see houses of a better level. In addition, at some points there were spectacular panoramic views.
When we finished, we went to the beach. There were signs about the dangerous currents and when I was about to go into the water, the lifeguard who was making rounds told me where I could go in.
Palm Beach
This beach was 30 minutes away by car.
There was a small route of one kilometer to get to the lighthouse.
We had planned to swim at the beach, but the intensity of the sun was unbearable, so we took the pictures and went home.
Red Hands Cave
This place is also in the Blue Mountains National Park, it took 1h30 by car to get to the beginning of the route.
Depending on where you park, the trail will be longer or shorter. We went down first to the Jellybean Pool and continued along the water until we saw the sign indicating the way to the cave.
We did almost 2h30 and the cave is quite a bit smaller than I expected. It is a very important site for the Aboriginal heritage of the country; the prints in the rocks date back 1600 years.
Sydney – Coastal Walk – Mosman
One Sunday we took the bus early in the morning to finish seeing what we still had to see in Sydney. This day was much nicer because there were only people doing sports and there was peace in the city.
Even so, we found traffic to go from Narrabeen to Sydney because in this city there are traffic jams 24 hours a day.
We went in the direction of the Opera House where we took the boat to get to Taronga Zoo station, where we started the route towards Obelisk Beach.
The route is beautiful, and we thought that there are few cities that have so many routes for walking and hiking along the coast or the river.
The initial idea was to finish at Obelisk beach and swim in the beach, but as there were many people, we decided to continue to Balmoral Beach and then we returned by bus to the house.
Obelisk Beach is a nudist beach and Balmoral Beach is more of a family beach and by midday there was a ruckus of kids running around.
Royal National Park – Wattamolla Beach
This day we had two hiking trails planned in the Royal National Park and the last stop would be at Wattamolla Beach.
We decided to go on a Tuesday because we had read that this beach was crowded on the weekend.
We started the hike up to Eagle Rock along the coast and the scenery was beautiful. It was the first time I felt like I was seeing scenery like in the movies.
Diego says he liked the Grand Canyon route better than this.
We returned at noon and as the sun was unbearable, and we still had a two-hour drive to get back, we decided to cancel the second hiking route and enjoy the beach.
We had been in Australia for almost a month, and we had only bathed in the Bondi Beach.
The water was cold, but never as cold as the beaches in Portugal.
The Basin and Mackerel Circuit at Ku-ring-gai National Park + Resolute Beach
We started our last weekend in Narrabeen doing the Basin Trail. It’s a short trail to Basin Beach where you can see wallabies.
There is a circular loop that goes through Mackerel Beach, but it was closed due to danger, so the only option was to go and return to Basin Beach by the same route.
As soon as we started walking, we saw the first Wallaby and were amazed that he was not afraid, and we were able to take all the pictures we wanted.
Basin Beach was beautiful, and it was very peaceful as most of the people at the campsite were still sleeping.
We met another Wallaby on the beach and took lots of pictures and videos. In total we saw 4 wallabies.
Then we went with the car to another point where the hiking trail to Resolute Beach started. As we could also go that way to Mackerel Beach, we took the opportunity to visit it.
Our idea was to swim at Resolute Beach, but there were too many people, so we decided to go back to the house. It was Easter Friday and at noon there was a line even on the trail.
Snorkel Shelly Beach + Hiking to North Head
In Sydney it is very typical to snorkel at Shelly Beach and what people normally do is to go from Manly Beach to Shelly Beach. It is a marine reserve where you can see many species.
We went by bus and when I arrived at Manly Beach, I couldn’t believe how many people were there at 7:40AM.
On the beach there were also tons of people doing sports: swimming, kayaking, surfing, etc.
At the end of the promenade is Shelly Beach which is a small beach. The idea was to snorkel first, but as we were already overwhelmed with so many people, we decided to start with the hiking route.
The route, although not one of the most beautiful in terms of nature, had important points of historical interest.
What we liked the most was Quarantine Beach because it was almost uncrowded and had spectacular turquoise water. I thought about staying there, but we decided to continue our way to Shelly beach because that is where we were supposed to see the most marine life.
As soon as we got to Shelly Beach, we regretted not staying at Quarantine Beach.
You can’t imagine how many people were everywhere. I have never in my life seen so many people just snorkeling, swimming, diving, and paddle boarding in the same place.
We snorkeled for a while and that was the end of our day of sightseeing.
Figure 8 Pools +Forest Path + Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan
For our last day of sightseeing, we returned to the Royal National Park.
We started with a hiking trail that leads to some natural pools in the shape of an 8. As we had read on the internet that it was always crowded, we decided to do it first thing in the morning.
We arrived before 9 o’clock and the parking lot was already full.
The route to the natural pools is basically by rocks on the edge of the coast.
Here it is very important to be careful with the signs as it is only safe when the tide is low.
We arrived and it was a typical “tourist trap“. It was impossible to see the natural pools because of the number of people and only one was in the shape of an eight.
It was also sad to see a lot of garbage and even used sanitary pads. I must point out that most of the tourists here are Chinese and Latinos.
Then we went to do a route called Forest Path that we had left pending from the day we visited Wattamolla Beach.
The first half of the route was beautiful, and the best thing is that there were no people there. We also encountered 3 yellow-crested cockatoos and spent some time photographing them.
Finally, we went to the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan where supposedly you could see kangaroos. In the blog we were following it said that it was better to go early in the morning or at sunset, but we went around 15h.
We did a short walk and when we were on our way back without hope, we saw 3 kangaroos.
Sunrise on Narrabeen Beach
On our last day we went to see the sunrise at Narrabeen beach. We spent a super nice morning and made it all the way to Turimetta beach. The sea was calm, and we were able to swim at the beach, which we had not been able to do all month. I even found a go pro in the sea, it was as if Australia was sending us off with honors.
In the next post I will tell you about our general experience in Australia and the expenses we had during the month.
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