Where to swim at Bondi

Between the flags, in the pools, or not at all. Bondi's rip is famous for a reason.

Bondi is patrolled between the flags, and the flags move. They are set by the lifeguards each morning according to where the water is safest that day, which is not the same place it was yesterday. Swim between them and nowhere else, and this is not advice a hotel gives to cover itself — the Backpackers' Express, the permanent rip at the southern end, is the most rescued-from stretch of water in Australia.

The north end, four minutes from our door, is the calmer half of the beach and where families tend to go. The south end has the better waves and the worse current.

If the surf is up and you still want a swim, use the pools. Bondi Icebergs at the south end charges a small entry and is the one in every photograph. The North Bondi rock pool is free, much smaller, and full of locals at seven in the morning. Both are seawater and both are cold until December.

Between May and September the water sits around 17–19°C. People swim in it every day without a wetsuit. You do not have to be one of them.