Waverley Coastline: A Community Perspective
Beaches and cliffs of the Waverley Council area served as a foundation for my professional life as a coastal scientist and my complementary involvement in coastal management. Here I grew up exploring rocks on the cliffs, learning to swim at Bondi Baths and body-surfing on the beach. My grandfather was one of the first Icebergs and my mother a member of the Ladies swimming group at the baths. One part of my high school years was at the Technical School at Wellington Street where they insisted we spend extended periods doing life-saving training. All this gave me a feel for the area including its changing post-World War 2 community.
As a product of these shores I am frequently prompted to ask questions. Just what natural forces have been at work to carve the cliffs and deposit the sands of Bondi, Tamarama and Bronte? Why do so many residents and visitors cherish this iconic place? What do they know of its history? And what of its future?
I lead public excursions from Ben Buckler to the Bondi Baths twice a year. I thank Waverley Council for the opportunity and privilege of being able to share my background with others and listen to their stories. Some of what I talk about on these excursions is briefly outlined here.
In my acknowledgement to country I pay my respects to Aboriginal traditional owners, but with respect to their knowledge I say nothing more than that (some information can be found in the reference list, see Booth, 2021). Rocks are my first call: cliffs and headlands such as Ben Buckler have been carved into the magnificent Hawkesbury Sandstone (c 220 million years in age). These rocks constitute the upper layers of the sedimentary sequence of the Sydney Basin and represent deposition in a huge river delta when Australia was tied to Antarctica. The layering and internal banding formed by iron oxides during cementation is most striking at headland exposures. They have been sliced by volcanic dykes that made excellent road metal from a quarry on the Bondi Golf Club in the 19th century. But it was the opening of the Tasman Sea between 80-50 million years ago that initiated the long history of ancient drowned rivers and cliffs of this coast. At this point I have to restrain myself from getting too technical about all this as the time scale and forces involved are awesome and I can get carried away.
With time, sea levels progressively rose across the continental shelf drowning the ancient valleys and wearing away layers of cliff rocks into ledges, slots, overhangs and caves. The rocks possess fractures called joints enabling blocks to get dislodged from cliff faces. The edge of these cliffs is a risky place to have a house; just look at the size of fallen rocks at the base of cliffs. At the foot of these cliffs are narrow platforms awash at high tides and bashed relentlessly during storms such as in 1912 when the “Mermaid” rock was apparently thrown up from the edge of the platform at Ben Buckler. The platforms were great places on which to build baths.
For much of the last million or so years, during the Ice Ages, shorelines were below present sea level on the continental shelf. Here sands were reworked by wave action winnowing out the weaker minerals to allow for concentration of tough quartz grains. Conditions had to change before these sands were transported landward. Two forces were active: one was wind blowing from the east picking up fine-grained, quartz sand off the continental shelf and sending it into the “Rose Bay trough” towards the valley of Sydney Harbour and up the slopes of Bellevue Hill and Dover Heights as dunes. The second force involved rising sea level at the end of the last Ice Age with waves pushing sands into bays. At Bondi this sand was mainly reworked dune sand. Bronte and Tamarama sand got mixed with some shelly material living on submerged local rocks. All these beaches have existed since c.6000 years when sea level finally reached its present position.
Beaches of this area receive waves from various directions but mostly from the southeast. Wave motions over the sandy seafloor forms bars and channels with return flows through the breaking waves driving rip currents. Position of bars and channels frequently change. Several rips can occur along a beach and awareness of their occurrence and distribution at any given time is important. Danger awaits when sets of waves raise water levels. When this happens swimmers can get into serious trouble as what happened in February 1938, “Black Sunday”, when many drowned (Booth, 2021). Surf Life Saving clubs ( Bondi and North Bondi) established in 1906 have long provided the community and visitors with support in beach rescue. In recent years new techniques of rescue and shark surveillance in offshore waters also involving professional lifesavers adds to sense of security for swimmers and surfers.
Beach areas of Bondi, Bronte and Tamarama have somewhat different histories of land ownership during the colonial period. Caroline Ford in her book Sydney Beaches (2014) discusses in detail what she called these “contested shores”. In brief, the contest was between the right of the public to access foreshores and land owners who received early land grants (e.g. Bondi to William Roberts in 1809), along with those who disputed the 1828 declaration of a 100 feet Crown reserve by Governor Darling. Public interests through much of the 19th century were no match against pro-property political power. This was despite respected officials such as Sir Thomas Mitchell advocating for healthy open spaces along the coast; he stated in 1854 in the case of Bondi that “access is indispensable on behalf of the public”. This view at the time was rejected. It was not until Waverley Council was established in 1852 that a concerted case for public use was initiated. However, it took until 1882 for the NSW Government to agree to resume 25 acres of coastal land at Bondi mostly from Francis O’Brien, who fought hard through the courts for compensation.
By the time Council took responsibility large areas behind Bondi Beach lost much of its vegetation creating active sand hills. Early experiments in sand draft control took place amongst these active dunes. Photos show people excessively dressed by today’s standard flocking to this beach with moving dunes in the background. One of the remarkable facilities established by the late 1880s at Tamarama was the Royal Aquarium and Pleasure Grounds later to become Wonderland City. The arrival of tram transport stimulated the development of housing estates and the arrival of visitors promenading behind the beach. By the 1920s Council set out a “beach improvement plan” for Bondi that created the park, pavilion, promenade and seawall that we enjoy to this day.
This coastline has a history of grand events. During World War 2, fear of invasion prompted the Army to install barbed wire across Bondi Beach, with the Sydney University Regiment blowing up beach passageways spraying concrete debris into shops along Campbell Parade. Bondi Beach has been the centre of great surf carnivals, including one visited by Queen Elizabeth in 1953; other royal visits have followed. In 1989 over 200,000 people flocked to Bondi for the “Turn Back the Tide Concert”. Outflow from the nearby cliff sewage operation produced the infamous “bondi cigars”. Public outcry led to the NSW Government investing in deepwater disposal, strongly advocated by Waverley Council. Council took a different position in 2000 when the Olympic Games planned to host beach volleyball on the perfect sands of Bondi. Council and a very vocal community lost this debate as outlined in an article by Andy Short and me in 2025. The stadium was quickly removed and at present there is no monument to this event on the promenade. There is however recognition of the declaration of a National Surfing Reserve in 2017 and a statue in honour of Pauline Menczer, a former world surfing champion in 1993.
The community of Waverley should be proud of its history. Yes there have been some very tragic moments. But it is a place where its beaches and cliffs offer so many memorable experiences. While much has changed over my lifetime in this area, beaches and their parks retain lots of the character from the past 100 years. With global warming we must expect continued demand for public use of sea and for that we need for these beaches to survive. Rocks from cliffs can fall at any time, but sand on these beaches are susceptible to sea-level rise combined with lack of recovery after extreme storm events. We talk of tipping points when conditions switch and what we see will be a much reduced or no beach. There are many uncertainties around when such depleted states may occur at these three beaches. So far they have survived despite current conditions of rising sea level. In future managers may have to look at various ways to sustain these beaches such as sand nourishment from stores of sand held on the seabed offshore. These are issues that Waverley Council must consider in its Coastal Management Program. But for now appreciate and enjoy what this coast and its history has to offer.
Bruce Thom
Words by Prof Bruce Thom. Please respect the author’s thoughts and reference appropriately: (c) ACS, 2026. For correspondence about this blog post please email admin@australiancoastalsociety.org.au
References
D. Booth, 2021: Bondi Beach—Representations of an Iconic Australian. Palgrave Macmillan publishers.
C .Ford, 2014: Sydney Beaches—A History. New South Publications.
B. Thom and A. Short, 2025: “Coastal hazards and Sydney Olympic Stadium on Bondi Beach”. In Waverley, Publication of Waverley Historical Society, Issue 2, December 2025.
NOTE: this blog was prepared at the request of Waverley Council for inclusion in their eNews.