Bondi to Coogee walk, and the bus that runs all night

Walk from one beach to the next, five times over, and swim at whichever one you like the look of. On the way you pass a cemetery sitting right on the ocean edge, and between May and November, whales.

Bring your swimmers and something to read. Five beaches in a row, and you will stop at more of them than you meant to.

It is a one way walk, which is the whole reason to leave the car at home. Finish at Coogee and you are at a different beach from the one you started at, a long way on foot from wherever you parked. There is a bus, and there is one all night, and that is the rest of this page.

How do you get there without a car?

Catch the 333 from Circular Quay to Bondi Beach and get off at Campbell Parade. If you are not sure which stop is yours, you can find it by the route number. It takes about 40 minutes: the 1.02pm from Circular Quay is at Bondi Beach at 1.42pm.

The walk starts at the southern end of Bondi, below the Icebergs pool. You will know it when you see it, because everyone else is walking the same way.

The walk itself

Waverley and Randwick councils manage half of this walk each, and neither of them publishes a distance, a time or a grade that we could read. So take every number you have seen for this walk, including the ones that used to be on this page, as somebody's estimate.

What nobody warns you about is the stairs. There are real climbs out of Tamarama and out of Bronte, and they arrive after a flat opening stretch has convinced you this is a stroll. Nothing technical, just more uphill than the reputation suggests.

There is almost no shade the entire way. It is a clifftop path, and by the middle of the day in summer that is the defining feature of the walk rather than the view.

What you pass, in order: Bondi, Tamarama, Bronte, the Waverley Cemetery clifftop with headstones sitting right on the ocean edge, Clovelly, then Coogee.

Between May and November there are whales, and the clifftop lookouts are as good a place to watch them from as anywhere in Sydney.

The practical stuff

• Toilets at every beach on the route: Bondi, Tamarama, Bronte, Clovelly, Coogee.
• Water fountains at Bondi, Tamarama, Bronte and Coogee.
• Swimming: Bondi Icebergs, the Bogey Hole at Bronte, Wylie's Baths at Coogee.
• Coffee at every beach. Bondi and Bronte have the most options.
• Kids manage it fine if they are confident walkers, but the Tamarama and Bronte stairs are real.
• Prams: no. Not the whole way.
• Dogs: read the signs at the beach you start from. Two different councils set the rules along this stretch, they change beach by beach, and we could not get either council to tell us what they are, so we are not printing hours you might get fined on.
• After rain the sandstone sections get slippery.
• Phone reception is good the whole way.

Early morning is quiet. Weekend afternoons and any summer day are not.

Getting back, and the thing nobody tells you

The fear that puts people in a car is that you finish at the wrong beach with no way home. On this walk it is not real, on any night of the week.

Route 373 leaves Coogee from Arden St opposite Coogee Bay Rd and runs all the way into the city, and it does not stop for the night.

• Sunday to Friday nights, it goes at 12.11am, 12.31am, and then every half hour until 3.31am.
• Saturday nights are the thin ones, which is the opposite of what you would guess. After 12.31am it drops to hourly: 1.31am, 2.31am, 3.31am.

At the Bondi end the 333 runs around the clock as well, every day, so if you change your mind halfway and walk back you are still fine.

Either way, check the live times before you leave the sand. A timetable is the plan. The countdown is what is actually happening.

That is the honest reason a transport app exists. Not to tell you the walk is nice, you already knew that. To tell you that the thing you were worried about is not a problem.