Tag: Bondi

Mother Nature and her quirky blessings

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Mother Nature gets a bad wrap, I think. We’re all so quick to use her name in vain when things get a little wild, but I reckon there’s a reason for the crazy stuff she does sometimes.

Yesterday, I think I may have discovered some of the method in her madness.

After what seems like weeks of wall to wall sunshine and warmth, a day of murky, damp weather finally descended on Sydney. The migration of beach-goers who’d crept out of hibernation a little early to make their summer nest in the sands of Bondi quickly fled back to their hiding places.

It was heaven. The beach was blissfully deserted.

Seeing my chance, I took advantage of the abandoned pavements and enjoyed a jog along Bondi’s coastal walk, free from dodging enraptured tourists stopping abruptly to take photos.

On the way home I hit a wall of wind. Not a gentle breeze that lets you imagine you’re in one of Beyonce’s music videos by gently tussling your hair, but a proper gale.

Usually I’d retreat to shelter as fast as my ASICS trainers and dodgy knees would carry me, but, for some unexplained reason, it was just so damn pleasant standing on the headland surrounded by grey skies, churning ocean swells and drizzling rain.

For a few glorious minutes, I stood facing the ocean quietly revelling in the sweeping gusts of wind that snatched all my cares and worries out to sea with it. Then, as if in reward for venturing out to appreciate one of her dodgier masterpieces, Mother Nature offered up an amazing sight – a pod of whales stupidly close to shore started fooling around and breaching all over the place.

It. Was. Awesome.

When Mother Nature turns on the sunshine we’re all quick to get out amongst it. But I think it’s when she’s having a bad day and just needs to get some things off her chest that she has some of her best moments.

The beach and its disciples

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I’m only relatively new to the area, but already I can see Bondi’s humourous side. It’s like it’s issued a moratorium on looking down your nose at all the wild and wacky stuff going on, and everyone happily abides by it.

Whatever it is that makes it so persuasive at enticing people to shrug off their inhibitions as they venture to the shoreline for their daily communion, I like it.

This morning on the beach there was one particular lady whose bashfulness was obviously snuggled up at home in bed. Not her, though. She was standing on the southern end of the beach, with her toes dipping into the moist sand as the surf waltzed gently – forward and back, forward and back – onto the shore.

At first I thought she was indulging in her morning “practice” (yoga, don’t you know) as she drank in the glow of another bright and gorgeous sunrise, but then her arms started flailing around in a move I’ve not seen from even the most skilled of zen masters. Shortly afterwards her legs followed suit.

If she’d been in the water pulling these moves, people would’ve been diving in after her with the Baywatch theme song ringing loudly in their ears.

I was so stunned and perplexed by her energetic genuflecting that I was momentarily bought to a standstill myself in an effort to understand exactly what kind of worship she was partaking in.

It wasn’t long before it all became clear, thanks to a couple of passers-by who’d obviously seen it all before, “clearly not a professional dancer, though, is she.”

Not content to keep her smooth moves on the dance floor, this sparkling little lady was busting them out all over Bondi’s sandy beach for all the world to see. I don’t care who you are, that’s the kind of view that brings a smile to everyone’s face.