The pram park on the North Bondi ramp

I have watched more than one tourist stand at the top of that ramp genuinely trying to work out what they are looking at. Twenty prams, some of them worth more than a secondhand car, lined up along a public handrail with nobody watching them. In a lot of the world that photograph would be captioned differently.

Where

The ramp at the northern end of Bondi Beach

What it is

An informal custom, not a council service

Why

Prams do not work on sand; the ramp is the way down

Busiest

Warm weekend mornings, roughly 9am to midday

Supervised

No. Nobody is watching your pram

Nearby

The children's pool, playground and the grassy foreshore

Why it happens here

Three things collide at the north end. Prams and soft sand are hopeless together, so the pram has to stop somewhere. The northern end is where families go, because the children's pool and the playground are there and the surf is usually gentler than down by the Icebergs. And the ramp is the single sealed route from the promenade down to the sand, so everyone converges on the same hundred metres of railing.

What you end up with is an unplanned car park for prams: a queue of them against the rail, parents carrying towels, hats and children down the last stretch in their arms.

The bit nobody says out loud

The ramp exists so that people who cannot manage stairs can reach the beach. It is an accessibility route first and a pram park second, and on a busy morning the line of prams can narrow it to a single file. If you are leaving a pram there, fold it where you can and keep it tight against the rail, leaving the width of the ramp clear. It costs you nothing and it is the difference between a charming local quirk and a genuine problem for someone in a wheelchair.

If you are visiting with a baby

• Come to the north end rather than the middle of the beach. The children's pool at the northern tip is a sheltered, shallow option when the surf is big, and the playground is right there.
• Arrive before about 10am on a warm weekend. The ramp, the shade and the grass above it all fill at roughly the same time.
• Bring a carrier as well as the pram if you have one. Getting a baby down the last stretch of sand is a lot easier than wrestling a pram through it.
• Use the grass instead of the sand if the pram has to stay with you - the lawns above the promenade are flat, firm and pram-friendly in a way the beach never is.
• Public toilets and change facilities are at the northern end near the pool, which is another reason families cluster here.

What it says about the place

I would not want to oversell a row of prams. But it is a fair read of the north end on a weekday morning: a lot of families who half-know each other, in a place small enough that leaving something unattended for an hour feels normal. That is genuinely what visitors are reacting to when they stop to take the photograph - not the prams, but what the prams imply.

For the rest of a day down here with small children, our guide to Bondi with kids covers the pool, the playground and where to eat without a fuss.