A Day Trip to the Northern Beaches

We had a Friday off thanks to Anzac Day. Jo & I went on a short walk around the block. The weather was nice and Jo quipped it would be a really nice day to head to the beach. Since we had nothing to do and our usual GoGet (GoGet is a car rental service that lets us rent a car by the hour) car - a Toyota RAV4 - was available, we booked the car. We were still in our workout clothes and had to head back to home, so we walked over to the car, drove it home and parked the car.

A quick trip to our house, we changed our clothes, put some sunscreen on, filled up our water bottles, stuffed some protein bars, picnic blanket and the other essentials like power bank, cameras and started towards the Northern Beaches. I asked Jo if she had any specific places to visit, she said no, just go for a drive to the Northern Beaches. So we started off, with the first destination set to Narrabeen Rock Pools.

Narrabeen #

Narrabeen is a beachside suburb of northern Sydney, 23 kilometres northeast of Sydney CBD. Initially, I had placed a maps location for Narrabeen Rock Pool. In my typical directionally challenged self, I took the turn right couple of blocks ahead of the rock pools and we ended up at Furlough Park, Narrabeen. Since we were here and the beach was right in front of us, we decided to park and spend some time here. The beach was clean and quiet, not a lot of people around. The ocean was really rough and thus, the beach was officially closed with big signs - but alas a lot of people seemed to ignore it and went into the waters any way. We got out blankets out and spent about 40 minutes here.

With our parking meter about to run out and the sunlight falling directly on us, we decided to pack up and keep driving ahead to the next destination - I saw Mona Vale Headland Reserve on the map and thought it would be a good place to stop.

Mona Vale Headland Reserve #

Mona Vale Headland Reserve has fabulous views of Mona Vale beach, the headlands and the ocean. There’s a picnic area with some benches where you can sit down and relax. Arguably, this was probably one of the best views of the Northern Beaches that I have seen and is worth visiting again just to sit down and relax.

Palm Beach #

After a quiet little walk around the reserve, we decided to head to Palm Beach. Palm Beach is a suburb of Sydney located at the northern end of the Northern Beaches. It is known for its beautiful beaches and scenic views. Since we had a lot of time to kill, we decided to take the scenic route on the Barrenjoey Road. The road is a bit narrow and winding, but the views are absolutely stunning. Some of the houses along the road were pretty stunning and I can only imagine how much they cost (potentially in the millions/tens of millions). After a short drive, we reached Governor Phillip Park and parked our car here. Picking up our picnic blanket and water bottles, we walked over to the beach. As with Narrabeen beach, the beach at Palm Beach was also closed due to the rough ocean waves. We rolled out our picnic blanket and relaxed on the beach for a couple of hours, occasionally walking along the beach into the water do dip our feet. The water was pretty cold and it was really nice to be there.

By the time we were done it was close to 3pm, so we decided to pick up some coffee at a restaurant called The Joey for the road. Before we left, Jo wanted to see if we could drive to the Barrenjoey lighthouse - however, there’s no road path there, only a long walk up the hill. We decided to skip it and head back home. While driving back, we decided to take the more scenic path through the winding roads, ogling at more million dollar houses and reached home.

Video #

I captured clips during the trip on an Insta360 Go3s and made a small video of the trip. Hope you like it!