Australian Beaches – Bondi Beach

Australia is renowned the world over for it's magnificent beaches. Australian beaches have golden sand, a healthy surf and are easily accessible to everyone.

Bondi Beach is perhaps the best known beach in Australia, due to it's popularity on postcards, and with the backpacking and traveling community in general. Bondi Beach has a large number of seasonal attractions. If you happen to be in Sydney at the right time of the year, then Bondi's got some pretty interesting things to offer.

The one that springs to mind for everyone is the City to Surf. This race is a bit of an institution in Sydney. It's the annual City to Surf Fun Run, it stretches about 14-kilometres, finishing at Bondi Beach and starting way back up in the city at College and William Street. It started in 1971, with about 2,000 people participating in this run, which is a fair number of participants. Last year there was 63,000 participants in this 14-kilometer run.

If you're that way inclined, it is a great experience to actually enter the race and really be a part of it, mixing with 60 odd thousand Sydney-siders. You don't have to be fully fit, there's no requirement to run, there's no time limit, and thousands of people walk the course just for the joy of being a part of it. It really is a unique experience if you get a chance to participate in the City to Surf.

The start has to be staged because of the sheer volume of people, and from the start, they stream all the way down Williams Street and into Kings Cross. It really is something to look down Williams Street there and shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, runners and walkers setting of on their 14-kilometer run. If you're in Sydney during the period of August, at the very least get down to Bondi Beach and watch the finish of this run because the atmosphere is incredible.

Sculpture by the Sea takes place in November each year in South Bondi. This is a 2-kilometre area of the walk from Bondi to Coogee, transformed to an open-air art gallery. A large number of sculptors and exhibitors show off the sculptures that they have created and put up there. You can walk past and you can take in these various sculptures and pieces of art, all very modern, some quite abstract, with a little written narrative on it; and you can take it in there and really get a feel for the local art and sculpting scene.

You could probably see the lot in 15 to 20 minutes if you were pushed for time, but if you've got the time, you can spend a number of hours doing that kind of thing as well. Sculpture by the Sea runs for about 3 weeks in early to mid-November, but if you're in Sydney and Bondi at the time, its well worth getting down there for a look.

So if you're planning on visiting Sydney, you definitely need to make time to visit some Australian beaches, and Bondi Beach should be high on your list of places to go.