Day 1, Sunday 23rd October: La Perouse to Maroubra

We have been putting off the start, but today is the day. We have decided to start at the southern most point, mainly because it is quicker to get there by bus. We head out at about 8.00am and take the bus in to town. We then need to catch a bus down to La Perouse. It turns out that only the L94 runs to La Perouse on a Sunday and these run only every half an hour and we have just missed one. Bad start. Here is a picture of Alex waiting at the bus stop for the L94.

We arrive at La Perouse at about 9:15am. It is at the end of Anzac Parade. La Perouse was a French explorer who visited Australia and mapped out significant parts of the east coast of the continent. His ship and all hands were lost on the trip home to France.

At La Perouse is Macquarie’s Watchtower. This is the start of the walk. Turn a left down to Congwong Bay beach. The beach has quite a bit of flotsam from the various ships in Botany Bay.

Then walk up at the far end of the beach (the path is obvious), turning left and following the sign to Henry Head. The walk to Henry head is quite heavily wooded. This whole area, is called Cape Banks after Joseph Banks, the scientist that accompanied Captain Cook on HMS Endeavour. Joseph Banks would have alighted here at Cape Banks on Botany Bay in April 1770. There are many Banksia trees along this walk, named after Joseph Banks of course.

It is important here to follow the arrows when you see them, even when they look like they may be pointing in the wrong direction. The walk has many view points where you can see cargo ships going in and out of Port Botany. You eventually arrive at Henry Head where there is a rather poor excuse for a lighthouse.

On the map we got from the web, it says that the next section of the walk to Cape Banks itself is closed. However we ask some locals who are passing and it turns out that it is now open having been upgraded. Indeed, the walk from here has a good path for about half its length. Then, as advised by the locals, we walk along the rocks to the last bit which ends up at the bottom of the NSW Golf Course. Alex lies down on the grass to recover from the first bit of the walk.

Cape Banks is the southern most part of the Sydney Basin coast line. It is actually approached over a rather minimal looking pedestrian bridge (it is not actually connected by land like it says on the map. We pick up a small piece of sandstone from this, the southern most point, with the aim of throwing it off the coast at Palm beach, the northern most point, in about ten weeks time. We think this is amusing.

From Cape Banks we head north. This is a long stretch up to Little Bay. The first part of this walk follows the edge of the Golf Course. The walk joins a road and passes the Sydney Pistol Club. A little way beyond, you turn right off the road. At the turn is a cemetery from the late 1800’s. It turns out there was once a major hospital on this site where patients were sent when they needed to be kept in isolation. Especially, it seems immigrants with diseases such as small pox. The cemetery has many flowers and looks very peaceful. 

 We eventually arrive at Little Bay. This is quite a nice little beach but a little hard to approach from the coast as it is fenced off from the Golf Course. From Little Bay, we head up along the edge of the Randwick Golf Course. We discuss why anyone would want to play golf an area where you were bound to lose a lot of golf balls with no hope of getting them back. However, the grass is nice.

We walk along the edge of the Randwick Golf Course all the way up into Long Bay. There is a famous prison at Long Bay. At the top of Long Bay is Malabar Beach. Nothing to write home about. 

At this point, life gets complicated. The Anzac Rifle Range takes over the coast between Malabar and Maroubra. No alternative but to turn inland, crossing Pioneers park before turning right through various domestic streets before coming out again at the coast at South Maroubra. It is a slight shock to see so many people on the beach. As you can see from the earlier pictures, not many other people on the walk. We walk up the beach to the main Surf Lifesaver Club, take off our shoes and cool our feet. Alex likes Maroubra, too many people for Hugh. We think we have walked about 15 kms on this first stretch. We catch the 374 bus back to town and are home by about 1:15pm for lunch.