Christine Carroll hits sunscreen all over her freckled skin with the only shade of the beach (a triangle cast by the makeshift Lifeguard station).
Squinting at the noon sun of sc fever, she glanced at her 8-year-old daughter, Zoe. “She's a water baby,” Carroll said.
The Pacific Ocean, which offers Australia's Sydney, its iconic coastline and some of the world's most enviable beaches, was almost 50 miles away. Pelican pods cruised through the past, coots walking nearby, but no seagulls were visible. The sign listened to the height of a wave of 2 millimeters and less than a tenth of an inch.
This is Pondy Beach.
No, not Bondi, but the glowing background of reality TV, backpacker fantasies and Australian surf and sand church ground zero, but as locals call it the humble artificial Penrith Beach, Pondi.
Created from one stretch of one of the former quarry lagoons at the foot of Blue Mountains, marking the pound-eye pronounced pondy, the western edge of the Sydney area, is not worthy of a penny like Bondi Beach of the same name. But it has become a welcome heaven for those who live inland from the coast for more than an hour and pay a large toll to get there.
Like many cities, Sydney's city's sprawl's rimage consists of working-class families, newly arrived immigrants who have been pushed further out of downtown due to rising home prices. In Penrith and nearby areas, the disparity exacerbated by climate change means living at temperatures that could be 30 degrees Fahrenheit higher than near the coast. In 2020, Penrith was the hottest place on the planet when mercury exceeded 120 degrees.
The beach opened for its second season in December, and so far has cost the state government around $2.7 million. It's just over half a mile long, and it's as long as Bondi Beach.
On a recent Sunday, when the 95-degree top-heat warning was enabled, the kids were willing to splash snorkels or pool floats in the shape of crocodile or unicorns. Some families threw rugby balls, while others cooked an east feast of shrimp, sausages and whole roast chicken. Several girls lay out on the stomach for sunburn.
Carroll, 46, a lifelong Penrith resident who works as an education coordinator at a nearby prison, has never had air conditioning at home. The night before, she said it was too hot in her house and she drove around just for the air conditioning.
Having a beach near her home means paying steep prices for fees, parking and food to keep them cool, not having to trek through the whole day trekking to the coast, paying steep prices for fees, parking and food, especially during the cost of living crisis she said she had stretched her finances. With her accounting, the day's outing was all she had to sacrifice gas to her for a 12-minute drive and a 50-cent McDonald's ice cream for her daughter back home.
“A lot of people get their noses up, but mate, that's free. They think it's a Bondi Beach Bogan imitation,” she said.
Zoe said he had been to “actual Bondy” for his cousin's swimming competition on a recent weekend. She liked it, but said that the salty taste of the seawater left red spots on her skin.
“I like how soft the sand is. In Bondi, the sand was too hot,” she said, digging her toes into the pale pond sand.
After playing underwater, El Hadi Dahia and his three children (6, 4, 1½) were walking down the grassy slopes to two food trucks. I polished two older hot dogs and potato treats and started pleading for ice cream. The youngest was in swimming diapers with the phrase “fish are friends.”
Dahia, from Darfur in the landlocked western Sudan, said he only knows how to “donkeys” swim in flooded rivers after the rain. He said he arrived in Australia as a refugee more than a decade ago and signed up his children for swimming lessons to develop a true Australia.
They were late for swimming classes that day and instead decided to go to Pondy, where his neighbors had been raving about it for a few weeks. Dahia, 38, said he was delighted and surprised, and he would probably be back soon.
Diana Harvey said she was skeptical of Penrith Beach before she decided to check it out on a whim on a recent weekday afternoon.
She needed a break from her job as a full-time caregiver for her adult son with autism. It kept her home most days and didn't go to the beach all summer.
“I was basically raised in the water,” said Harvey, 52. “We are all water people here.”
She jumped at Pondy on a faded summer day. She had expected to hit a fast 20-minute dip, but eventually she swam for two hours, with the blue mountains palpable, and the vast, navy sky reflected in the calm seas.
Some residents believe that inland beaches up to now will inherently become glorious swamps, and are briefly closed about water quality concerns. Opening Week of Pondy in 2023 was damaged by tragedy when a man floating on a paddleboard with young children across the swimming area owned.
Still, more than 200,000 people visited the beach in their first season, according to the state government.
On a recent weekend morning, Barbara Dunn's family first lined up before Gates opened at 10am on the beach, with her 6-year-old daughter's rhythm thrusts her head out of the back window of the car with excitement.
“When we come from New Zealand, we call this a lake,” said Dan, 45. “It does work. You get wet, right?”
A rhythm surrounded by a plastic bucket filled with tools for creating a sand castle. For the next six hours, the hot sun peaked overhead, then began heading towards the mountains. The crowd was full and thinner, she swam tirelessly, playing in the sand, rolling through the grass of the river.
“She doesn't want to go home,” Dan said with a sigh.
