Local's Only: The hidden gems of Bondi Beach

Everyone knows the postcard Bondi - the flags, the Icebergs pool, the crowd on the south steps. But the Bondi I love lives in the margins: a beach that vanishes for years at a time, a clifftop I go to for whales, a bookshop where nobody minds if you never buy a thing. Here are the hidden gems I send friends to when they want the local's Bondi, not the Instagram one.

Best for

Escaping the main-beach crowds

Cost

All free (bring cash for coffee)

Getting there

Most sit along the Bondi–Bronte coastal walk

My tip

Go early morning or golden hour

Mackenzies Bay - the beach that disappears

This is my favourite piece of Bondi trivia. Mackenzies Bay is a small rocky cove tucked between Bondi and Tamarama, and for most of the year it's exactly that - rocks. But every so often the swell sweeps enough sand ashore to build a whole hidden beach, and then a big storm strips it away again. Locals joke it appears "every seven years," though the truth is it follows no schedule at all.

You'll pass above it on the coastal walk, just south of Mackenzies Point. Whether there's sand on the day is pure luck - which is exactly what makes stumbling onto it feel like a secret.

Ben Buckler Point & the quiet north end

Head to the far northern tip and the energy changes completely. Ben Buckler Point is the rugged headland past North Bondi, and it's where I go for the view without the masses - panoramic ocean, the whole beach behind you, and in whale-migration season (roughly the colder months from around May) a real chance of spotting a humpback offshore. Bring a coffee and a jumper; the wind up there has opinions.

Below the point, the rock shelf at the north end hides shallow tidal pools that fill and warm in the sun at low tide - calmer and far less crowded than the main beach, and lovely for a paddle with little kids. Check a tide chart first, because they're only really there on a low tide and the rocks get slippery.

Bondi's backstreets & a bookshop I could live in

The strip along Campbell Parade is the tourist Bondi. The real one is a block or two back. Wander the streets around Gould and Curlewis and you'll find vintage stores, tiny galleries, changing wall murals, and the kind of hole-in-the-wall cafés locals guard jealously - the best aimless-wander neighbourhood in the eastern suburbs.

My reliable anchor is Gertrude & Alice on Hall Street - a second-hand-and-new bookshop with a café folded right into it, named after Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Books are stacked on the floor, the walls, even the tables, and you're welcome to read for as long as you like over a coffee. On a grey Bondi afternoon there's nowhere I'd rather be. Check their site for current hours before a special trip.

Bondi rewards the wanderer. The good stuff is rarely on the main drag.

String them together on the coastal walk

The neat thing is you don't have to choose. The Bondi-to-Bronte section threads past Mackenzies Point and the cove on an easy, mostly-paved clifftop path. Start at the south end of Bondi, take your time, and you've knocked over half this list in an hour - headland, hidden cove and ocean views included.

That's my local's shortlist - the disappearing beach, the whale-watching headland, the quiet north-end pools and the bookshop I never leave empty-handed. Skip the main-beach scrum for a morning, follow these, and you'll see the Bondi most visitors walk straight past.