I expected my last day in Sydney to be sunny… but it wasn’t meant to be. It was cloudy, and by the time the bus dropped me off at Coogee Beach, it started to rain…. Desperation!

I walked a bit along the beach, then sat a bit under cover in one of the park huts, waiting for the rain to pass… and then off by foot all along the coast to Bronte and Bondi beaches. It’s a great walk, taking a bit under two hours, passing along a number of coves, cliffs, beaches, ocean pools and parks.

I passed beautiful Waverley cemetery, right on the coast. I had read about that, but then forgotten, so I’m really glad I stumbled over it again.

It is a beautiful, silent site, on a hill over the cliff, watching out on the ocean. That’s how you’d like to be buried… I wandered through the rows of graves, most of them over a century old (even though the cemetery is still in use) and falling apart.

The cloudy weather added to the special, dark atmosphere, that weird light ahead of a storm…

And sure enough, by the time I got to Bronte Beach it had started to rain again, and it didn’t look like a light drizzle.

Faced with the option of getting wet from above, I decided to put on my trunks and jump into one of the ocean pools. They are built into the rocky sides of most beaches, with a wall facing the ocean to break the waves. It was cold and refreshing after the long walk in this humid, pre-storm weather.

A perfect end to this wet day, a swim in the ocean in the rain.