Here's the fifth instalment of the month of beaches, with yet another beautiful slice of the Northern Beaches.
Curl Curl
If you've been reading along, then it won't come as a shock to find out that by following Freshwater's Curl Curl Boardwalk north, you wind up in the suburb of Curl Curl. Immediately over the border, this coastal walk treats you to a select view of the suburb's beach up ahead
The rocky coast also continues from the previous suburb, with the erosion of the sea making for some interesting patterns. I like that boulder, that is a nice boulder.
After only a short distance is the beach's pool, with the waves crashing over the wall making for quite the dramatic scene.
This walk led me onto the street, where I could take the stairs down to the beach.
Before I did that though, I stopped to take a glimpse of the beachside houses here. The beach houses of Curl Curl seem to be much more "down to earth" compared to some of the more aggressively luxurious homes along the coast in other suburbs. This is Sydney though, so I'm sure they still cost many millions of dollars regardless.
And onto the beach I went. Curl Curl Beach features the usual suspects, sweeping yellow sand, water and folks enjoying the outdoors. Interestingly, the sand joins with the rest of the land rather organically, with no cliffs or cement walls between the beach and the rest of the suburb, but only a grassy-sandy bank.
Anyway, it was lunchtime and I was ready for a bite. As far as my eyes (and Google Maps) could tell, Gusto Cafe, embedded in the surf lifesaving club, is the only place in town for a quick meal.
Management here clearly knows that their biggest asset is the location, so the cafe has both outdoor dining and big-airy windows if you choose to eat indoors.
Rather bizarrely for a place on the beach, the menu is standard cafe fare with no seafood in sight. Instead, they sell burgers, wraps, salads and bowls as their lunchtime offerings. I ended up going for a BLAT (bacon-lettuce-avocado-tomato) sandwich,
and an iced latte.
The meal was fine (I mean it's not like you can really screw up a bacon sandwich), but sitting on the beach with an iced-coffee can't help but make you appreciate this city.
After finishing up, I continued north along the shore.
This leads to a beachside park with a lot of space to walk or sit,
and of course, more of Curl Curl.
The park, as you may expect, sits in front of people's houses. I wasn't inspired to point any in particular out, apart from this one block of units featuring Kel Knight's hair.
As you continue along, the park's land (parkland?) gets a little wilder, with sandy hills,
and shrubs leading back to the beach.
Somewhat interestingly, this bit of the beach is called North Curl Curl Beach, despite being the same beach as Curl Curl Beach, and not falling in the suburb of North Curl Curl.
The actual North Curl Curl's over there, right at the end of the sand, for what it's worth.
Having taken more than enough pictures of Curl Curl beach, I headed off the sand once more,
and to this bridge leading into the next suburb.
This bridge is over a lagoon which Google tells me is both called Harbord Lagoon and Curl Curl Lagoon.
If you don't yet want to leave Curl Curl, you can walk or cycle adjacent to the lagoon instead, rather than crossing it,
but I was ready to continue on.
Oh, I also saw this duck.
Curl Curl: Something curly.
That "duck" is actually a eurasian coot. This looks to have been taken during the worst of the Black Summer bushfires in December 2019. There should have been lots of birds around then. They all scarpered off after February 2020, to the distant wetlands that were filling up when the rain arrived, and the fires were doused.
ReplyDeleteWow. I had no recollection of your project before today, yet I'm fairly certain I wrote the first comment above.
ReplyDeleteYour "sandy hills" used to be the Curl Curl sand dunes. They were excavated during the Great Depression to make concrete for Pittwater Road, which runs from Manly to Mona Vale, in an economic stimulus project - it also produced a useful road.