The forty-minute ferry ride from Church Point delivers you to a place that operates on its own clock. Currawong Beach sprawls in a gentle arc where Pittwater meets Broken Bay, its sand the color of wet wheat. The settlement here—a clutch of weatherboard cabins and a historic guesthouse dating to the 1920s—exists in splendid isolation, powered by generators and accessed solely by water. You'll share the shoreline with resident wallabies that emerge at dusk and the occasional yacht anchored offshore.
“One of greater Sydney's last boat-access-only communities, where a Depression-era settlement still operates without road connection.”
Credit: FlickrSculptures By The Sea 2014
The swimming is gentle, the water olive-green near shore and deepening to slate as the bottom drops away. Spotted gums lean over the northern end where a walking track climbs toward West Head. In the shallows, you might spot dusky flathead or a Port Jackson shark nosing through the seagrass. The beach faces west, which means the afternoon light turns the sandstone cliffs across the water into burnt orange.
Most visitors come for the day, but the few who overnight at the guesthouse experience the settlement after the last ferry departs—when the only sounds are fruit bats in the figs and the tide working the pilings. There's a kiosk for provisions, a tennis court gone mossy, and paths that wind through coastal heath to hidden coves. This is Sydney's edge, where the city's northern suburbs finally surrender to national park and open water.
