Perfect in Winter

Jun13

Exploring Australia

It may be the middle of winter, but the day we visit Palm Beach the weather couldn’t be better. 

Unless you live in Sydney you may not be familiar with the Northern Beaches suburb of Palm Beach. But if you’re a fan of Australian television soap operas you’ll definitely have heard of its alter ego, Summer Bay. Palm Beach is the setting for the outdoor scenes of the TV show, Home and Away. 

Located on a narrow peninsula, Palm Beach is almost completely surrounded by water. On the eastern side is the famous beach featured on television, a 2.3 kilometre stretch of white sand edged by the Pacific Ocean. North of the peninsula is the wide expanse of Broken Bay while on the west is Pittwater, a deep and wide river estuary . 

We’re staying in Gosford on the northern side of Broken Bay, and the best way to travel to Palm Beach is on the local ferry.

From the terminal at Ettalong, the ferry sails into the open waters of Broken Bay. The half hour journey follows a clearly marked route between Box Head and Barrenjoey Headland. Even from a distance the Barrenjoey Lighthouse stands out high above the water on the headland. 

At Palm Beach the ferry docks at the pier alongside Pittwater Park. We’ve already decided to avoid the busy beach area popular with fans of the TV show; instead we stay on the quieter Pittwater side.

With freshly cooked fish and chips for lunch, we settle ourselves near the water’s edge. Children paddle in the shallows, sailboats at anchor gently rock in the tidal current and we just sit, enjoying the beautiful scenery. 

It’s the perfect way to spend a winter’s day.

 

55 thoughts on “Perfect in Winter”

  2. 🙂 wonderfull! I miss going on Holiday! Between COVID and now the racist mayhem going on in ‘yankey doodle’ land & the rest of the world it is hard to enjoy anything 😦

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  4. What an amazing time away. I can’t even imagine the thrill of being able to not only enjoy the lovely surroundings but also be able to travel around freely like that. We’re definitely not there yet so I will certainly enjoy your adventures from afar. 🙂

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  6. As soon as I got the part where you wrote ‘Home and Away’ I was singing along with the tune automatically 🙂

    It’s nice to see that stone (sandstone?) and the greenery – just my cup of tea.

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  7. Ah, I was hoping you would say you’d visited the lighthouse. When I walked up in 2014 it was closed. My second visit to Palm Beach and I have not found the beach side busy on either occasion. It is glorious up those northern suburbs, but oh, so expensive to buy or rent property. But the fish and chips from the Boathouse were not very good (and not cheap). Sounds like yours were much better!

    https://traveltalk.me.uk/2014/12/02/home-and-away/

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  10. Palm Beach looks idyllic, what a perfect place to walk and relax. I love a long walk on the beach with boats and activity to look at, always interesting. Lovely photos.

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  11. It looks absolutely wonderful. We have visited Sydney but didn’t get to this spot. Hard to imagine that we would ever get on a plane to fly that kind of distance again but time will tell.

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  15. Hello. What a lovely post with wonderful photos. To me, who lives in the north, winter sounds odd. We have summer at its best. Temperature is about 30 Centigrade and sun is shining all the night in the north. No nights!!! Can you imagine it?

    Have a wonderful day!

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  19. It’s not like you to sit and watch the world go by. Isn’t you foot getting better? Your pictures are stunning, especially of the boats on the placid waters and the beautiful reflections. The clouds look like a painting. 🙂 Get better soon.

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