Kristine Carroll has placed himself in the only nuance on the beach – a triangle flowed by the post of fortune rescuer – and has coated a sunscreen over his full freak skin.
Suffering from the midday burning sun, she looked at her 8-year-old daughter, Zoe, who had already plunged into blue-green water without hesitation. “It’s a baby of water,” said Ms. Carroll.
The Pacific Ocean, which gives Sydney, Australia, its emblematic coast and some of the most enviable beaches in the world, was nearly 50 miles away. A pod of Pélicans has passed in front and whips waded nearby, with not a gull in sight. A sign warned against the heights of waves of 2 millimeters – less than a tenth inch.
Here is the Pondi beach.
No, not leap, the brilliant backdrop of reality TVThe fabric of the daydreams of the backpackers and zero terrestrial of the Australian church of surfing and sand – but lays, as the inhabitants took the call of the humble and artificial Penrith beach.
Created on a section of a lagoon in an old career at the foot of the blue mountains which mark the west of the Sydney region, Pondi, pronounced with lays, is not exactly worthy of the postcard like the eponymous beach of Bondi. But it has become a welcome paradise for those who live an hour or more inside the land of the coast and pay high tolls to get there.
Like many cities, the margins of Sydney urban sprawl are made up of workers’ families, newly arrived immigrants and those who have grown more and more in the city center by increasing housing prices. In Penrith and in neighboring areas, this also means living with temperatures that can be 30 degrees Fahrenheit higher than near the coast, a disparity exacerbated by climate change. In 2020, Penrith was briefly The hottest place on the earthWhen the mercury exceeded 120 degrees.
The beach has opened its doors for a second season in December and has so far cost the government of the state about 2.7 million dollars. Just over half a thousand long, it is as long as Bondi Beach.
A recent Sunday, when a heat warning was in force with 95 -degree peaks, the children joyfully splashed in Pondi with tubes or pool floats in the shape of crocodiles and unicorns. Some families threw a rugby ball, while others have prepared a shrimp, sausage and a whole roasted chicken party. A couple of girls lay on their stomachs for a tan.
Ms. Carroll, 46, resident of Penrith for life who works as an education coordinator in a neighboring prison, has never had air conditioning at home. The previous night, she said, she rolled in her car just for air conditioning, because it was too hot in her house.
Having a beach near her house so that her family cools down, rather than having to spend a full day to make trekking on the coast – paying high prices for tolls, parking and food – was of major help, especially in a cost of living crisis which, according to her, has extended her finances. By his accounting, the release of this day would only cost him the gas for 12 minutes by car and a 50 cents McDonald’s ice cream for her daughter on the way back.
“Many people go up their noses, but guy is free. They think it’s the bogan The inclination of Bondi beach, “she said, using the derogatory Australian slang for a coarse person, historically associated with the western suburbs of Sydney.
Zoe said she went to “really leap” during a recent weekend for the swimming meeting of a cousin. She loved her but said that the salinity of the ocean water had left her red spots on her skin.
“I like the softness of the sand. In Bondi, the sand was too hot,” she said, igniting her toes in the pale pondi sand.
After playing in the water, Elhadi Dahia and her three children – aged 6, 4 and 1 ½ – had set up a grassy slope with two food trucks. The two older hot dogs and a snack of potatoes, and began to plead for ice cream. The youngest was in a swimming layer with the words “the fish are friends”.
Originally from Darfur in the landlocked Sudan, Mr. Dahia said that he only knew “swimming at the donkey”, having grown up while swimming in rivers that flooded after the rain. He said that he had arrived in Australia over ten years ago as a refugee and that he had scored his children at swimming lessons for a real Australian education.
They were late for swimming lessons that day and rather decided to go to Pondi, from which his neighbor has been delighted for weeks. Mr. Dahia, 38, said he was pleasantly surprised and said he would probably be back for a long time.
Diana Harvey said she was skeptical about Penrith Beach before she decided to check it for a recent afternoon on weekdays.
She needed a break in her duties as a full -time career for her autistic adult son, who keeps her at home most of the time, and had not gone to a beach all summer – a parody for many Australians who plan to swim a dawn.
“I was mainly raised in the water,” said Harvey, 52, remembering that her family would spend three hours driving towards a beach and coming from the summers. “We are all waters here.”
She had jumped by Pondi in the decreasing days of the summer by thinking that she would take a rapid 20-minute dip but ended up swimming for two hours, the Blue Mountains are majestically extending beyond and a large reflective azure sky in the serene waters.
Some residents have wondered if a beach so far inside the land would be essentially A glorified marshAnd there have been brief closures on the concerns of water quality. Pondi’s opening week in 2023 was spoiled by a tragedy when a man who floated on a paddle board with his young children beyond the bathing area drowned.
However, more than 200,000 people visited the beach in its first season, according to the government of the state.
During a recent weekend morning, Barbara Dunn’s family was the first online before the beach doors opened at 10 am, its 6-year-old rhythm that took the head of the back of their car in the excitement.
“Hence we come to New Zealand, we would call that a lake,” said Dunn, 45. “It does the job. You get wet, right? ”
The rhythm is delimited through the sand with its plastic bucket filled with tools to build sand castles. During the next six hours, when the hot sun culminated above the head, then began to head towards the mountains, while the crowd filled then lightened, it swam relentlessly, played in the sand, rolled in the grass of the river.
“She will not want to go home,” said Dunn with a sigh.
