Bondi beach was our third and last stop on a two week tour over Christmas and New Year 2017/2018, with NYE planned for Bondi. It was only a 90 minute drive from Bundeena, with some scenic views exiting the Royal National Park, until the highway and urban expanse of Sydney.

Wanting to make this holiday special for my daughter Sam, who gets little time off work, I spent many many hours online trying to get the best accommodation I could afford. I was unsuccessful at finding self-catering on Stayz and Airbnb in Bondi. Anything near the beach was way out of my price range, and those I contacted within my price range didn’t reply, possible because I only wanted it for five days. After weeks of searching, and places filling up fast, this is

Australia mid-summer holiday period as well as Christmas and New Year, I settled on finding a hotel. A deal on Expedia for Hotel Bondi looked pretty good, after days of deliberation I booked it as there was very few rooms left in Bondi on all websites and I didn’t want to miss out getting something near beach-side.

As a note, to give you an idea of time-scales, I was looking and booking this around September time. Plan well ahead, it wasn’t a sales pitch, the rooms really were booked up that soon for the Christmas period.

We’d driven from Bundeena, around 60kms South of Bondi, in my daughter’s car, still loaded with mountain bikes and all the kit required for mountain riding after a previous visit to Thredbo. On arriving at Campbell Parade in Bondi I was pleasantly surprised to find Hotel Bondi right opposite the famous beach, and amidst the action of Bondi life itself. It has secure underground parking for $10 a night, which was a really good facility, and I felt happy our bikes would be safe down there.

I’d booked a twin room, and that’s what we got! The room was big enough, quite non-descript really but perfectly adequate for us, but bumping up the fab factor was a patio door leading out to a large communal balcony running the whole length of t