As sand rearranges and hearts start to heal, Bondi eases into a different normal

2 months ago 18

Follow our live coverage of the Bondi shooting here.

As the tide came in for the seventh time after the Bondi Beach massacre, the sand rearranged itself, the promenade reopened and the early morning fitness set returned.

Soon it was teeming with its usual mix of the beautiful and the weird: runners, amblers, shufflers, swimmers, surfers, chatters in every tongue, pram pushers, dog walkers and made-up women wearing lycra, with mobile phones linked to their headphones.

Shoes left behind by those fleeing the massacre that left 15 people dead.

Bondi began to be reclaimed by sunbathers four days on from the attack.

The Bondi promenade has reopened after Sunday’s terror attack.

They paused at shoes lined up along the beach to take photos and mourn the victims.

“How you going, brother?” one lifeguard called out to a local man.

“Much better today,” the man replied. “We will not be crying today.”

The area behind the Bondi Pavilion remained a crime scene and police officers stood in twos and threes about the car park. Cleaners came and went from North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club, removing traces of the makeshift casualty ward that appeared there on Sunday night.

Tributes to those killed at Bondi Beach.

It will return to business on Saturday, and volunteer lifesavers will begin duty at 8.15am, after observing a minute’s silence with their comrades from Bondi SLSC and Tamarama SLSC, standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the sand. By 8.30am, the flags will be up.

For now, they were still trading stories of the carnage. The man who took his granddaughter for an ice-cream 10 minutes before the first shot was fired, the ice-cream that might have saved her life. The volunteer lifesaver who ran towards the gunshots and held together the bodies of the victims.

At the southern end of the beach, four men set up a game of volleyball while surfers peeled out of the water to head to work.

At 10.30am, red and yellow flags returned to the middle of the beach for the first time since the attack. People were swimming anyway. They might as well be safe.

The row of flowers behind the lifeguard tower was almost as wide as the flags and dotted with assorted objects. There was a cluster of candles, a box of beads and string, a bag of soil besides some poppy seeds, the sketch of an Anzac Digger, various soft toys, a knitted purse with a Star of David pattern and a painting of menorah – the Jewish candles lit at Hanukkah – and dove over the ocean, above the caption “Matilda RIP 14/12/25 – Bondi, a sea of tears”. There were messages from Germany, Canada, Italy, Chile and Darwin, messages written in French, Hebrew and Japanese.

On Friday morning, local board riders will take part in a paddle-out.