Burwood Beach

On a Saturday morning, I decided to go on my first hike in Australia. I quickly found a trail going to a ‘hidden’ beach (a beach that did not appear on Google Maps) on All Trails (a hiking/trail app). This was perfect because I was wanting to go to a beach, but I had already been to Newcastle, Nobby’s, and Mereweather Beaches, which are all popular public beaches and always have a decent amount of people. I hadn’t taken my camera out very much yet, so I was looking for a beach that would be less populated, and Burwood Beach was the obvious choice!

I originally planned to go alone, but a couple of hours before leaving, I reached out to our exchange student group chat to see if anyone wanted to join. Filip, who is on exchange from the Czech Republic, said he would join. I packed up lunch, swimmers, my beach towel, both my Sony DSLR and my Polaroid, and headed out to meet Filip at his sharehouse in Tighes Hill. The packing process took a bit longer than expected because I needed to fit my Polaroid in my small cooler along with my lunch and extra water. I had learned that Polaroid film produces a pink-tinted image when exposed to heat, and hoped to counteract this by cooling the camera & film inside it before shooting (it worked!).

Once I got to Tighes Hill, Filip & I split an Uber to the Yuelarbah Carpark (parking lot) – it was only $10 apiece and would take 20 minutes instead of an hour by bus. From there, we hiked an hour or so to Burwood Beach. We swam, ate lunch, lay in the sun, and hung out until the sun went down. Then, as the sun set, we walked North along the beach until we got to Mereweather.