ongoing

Mackenzies Beach or Maccas to the local surfers, is a unique and somewhat elusive spot located between our two famous beaches Bondi and Tamarama. It’s known for its transient nature, appearing and disappearing with the seasons and tides. Where every couple of years at the beginning of winter, and almost overnight, a small cove suddenly turns into a beach, popular with surfers, swimmers, sunbakers and with dogs and their owners.

Over the years Mackenzies Beach (Mackenzies) has transformed into a narrow strip of sand, or a deep beach and at other times just a rocky inlet. Many locals claim the ultimate year for Mackenzies was in 1997 when there was so much sand it was almost possible at low tide to walk between Tamarama and South Bondi. This impressive showing abruptly ended when a massive east coast cyclone pounded the coast in May of that year and the beach disappeared overnight. And it didn’t come back for 10 years. In May 2007 Mackenzies made a dramatic reappearance, with locals enthusing that there was more sand at Mackenzies than there had been for 50 years. The beach was estimated to have been around 80 metres wide and 20 metres deep. But by August it was gone, swept away by ferocious gales.

How did Mackenzies get its name?
From the 1860s to approximately 1926 two generations of the Scottish-born Mackenzie family ran Waverley Dairy on farmlands which stretched from near the corner of Bondi Road and Denham Street east to the coast and as far south as Gaerloch Avenue, Tamarama. Waverley Dairy was the largest and longest running of all the local dairies, with the contract to supply milk to Sydney Hospital. At one stage Waverley Dairy cows grazed in a big paddock overlooking the ocean owned by the family, which is now Marks Park, Bondi. The cows are long gone, but the point at the end of Marks Park remembers its earlier bovine life and is named Mackenzies Point.

When will Mackenzies Beach return?
Ana Vila-Concejo, a professor of coastal geomorphology at the University of Sydney said: "To have a beach in a certain place, we need three ingredients. We need waves to move sand, we need the sand, and we need somewhere to put the sand," she said. "Only sometimes we have waves of an appropriate size and direction that will move the sand that is available into the hole in the coast where Mackenzies beach grows." So, when the conditions are just right, Mackenzies will reappear again to become a temporary oasis for all to enjoy.

Images courtesy the Waverley Library Local Studies Collection.