There were several things that could have drawn us to Jules but if we’re being honest it was the sparkly helmet. Anyway, we’re glad we did. It was a very nice connection.

Jules arrived in Australia over 11 years ago and very quickly found himself in Bondi, drawn here by his friends, the ocean and the “gym vibes”. He had a five year stint out of the Eastern Suburbs but came back to us after breaking up with his ex.

“I spend my first hour at the gym every week days and on a chill walk on week ends.
I have got a car dealership specialised in 4WDs and Campervans to allow people (mostly backpackers) to travel Australia.
I would say I am a pretty hard working person during the week who loves to disconnect during the week end.
I love pretty much anything with an engine, adventures and really interested in people, curious about what makes them who they are.”

Petrina, was on her way to meet her friends at the Bondi Festival’s Paw Parade at the Pavilion when we met her. We were on our way there too.
Talk about joyous chaos. Hopefully it will be regular event on the Festival’s calendar.

It’s good to change it up a bit. We swim at the Icebergs most days and reward ourselves with a coffee there before coming home. Sadly (for me!) the Bergs Café has been out of turmeric, an essential ingredient in my turmeric latte, and so we have swapped it up and been going to Surfish instead. This was fortuitous as we got to meet Alison who was remote-working there last week.

Alison was wearing a top that promoted the part of the world where she is from and reads “Great Lakes: No Salt, No Sharks, No Worries” which amused us immensely.

“I’d say my Bondi story is about taking a chance and keeping an open mind. Several years ago, I moved to Sydney from Michigan with my partner, despite never having visited Australia before. We initially thought Bondi would be a short-term stop, but after just a few months of living here, we were completely won over by the lifestyle. What started as a temporary move quickly turned into a place we were proud to call home.

As of late, I’ve been spending the first hour of my day either at a House of Sculpt Pilates class or going for a walk along the promenade before work. I love being able to balance more intense movement with slower, relaxed time outdoors, and Bondi makes it easy to take advantage of both”.

If you were lucky enough to attend the Golden Hour outdoor music concert featuring Crowded House in February or Mighty Hoopla the following night you would have seen Adelle in any direction you looked. As a founding partner of Fuzzy the events company with the motto “good times done properly” Wiradjuri woman Adelle takes the remit seriously. Both events took place on the beach with set up happening in the two weeks prior. There was minimal disruption but maximal joy.

“Swimming is my favourite thing. No matter what is going on a dip in the ocean will always make me feel better. As someone who grew up in western Sydney and used to spend hours on buses and trains getting to the beach I feel very privileged to call Bondi home. I love a morning swim with the locals, I love a middle of the day swim when the beach is packed with people from all over the world, I love an after work swim when you can wash the day away.

My morning varies but I will either be at Balance Moves doing Pilates, at Women’s Strength Training on Wellington St or swimming in the rock pools at Mackenzies with my dog Luna.”

We profiled Glenn in 2023 but have recently been alerted to the news that Glenn has just published his first book, Teeth Kicker published by Harper Collins so we thought an update was in order.

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Glenn was in the news in 2009 when he was bitten by a shark. The first such incident in Bondi in decades. He seems to take it in his stride.

“I came to Bondi in 2007 when I got engaged to a “born and bred” Bondi local. I loved it immediately. Been here 16 years now. I miss Jeds. I love how there are share surfboards at North Bondi. I love the beach in the late afternoon. Oh, I was bitten by a shark here back in ’09, but it’s not such a biggie. (See!)

I love to surf and write. I love to spend time with my family and to go and see the ocean once a day.

The first hour of my day I help get the kids ready for school, walking the dog, and drinking coffee with my wife.”

The big red ball

The big yellow cones

Every day is a surprise down at the bach

“While I have been to Bondi before for holidays, this time has felt more like easing into the lifestyle and vibe of the place. That’s thanks to regular early morning visits to the Icebergs pool, but it’s not just the swimming, it’s the new friends I have made that make me feel so welcome.

I have met other mothers visiting their children here and I feel I am part of another evolution of an Irish emigration and diaspora story. I look back
to the times when people left Ireland for Australia and might never be heard from again ‘back home’. We live in such different times now, with instant connections to our loved ones around the world.”

The first time we brought Margie into the Bondi Observer fold was when she was working with Ian Darling as executive producer on his film The Pool. She had convinced Ian, who was looking for his next project, to make a film about the importance of the pool to the community. The COVID closures were difficult for many as they came to realise “our daily interactions with each other were more than we realised”.

She also has a roster of regular clients whom she helps with their travel arrangements (not an easy time to be working in travel).

Margie is a dedicated rail, hail or shine ‘Berger.

“I moved into the area 23 years ago and Bondi quickly became my daily routine.

I’m an ocean lover, I need to submerge in the saltiness every day, hopefully twice a day.

My first hour of the day is spent in the water! I’m either swimming laps at Bondi icebergs which is a beautiful suntrap full of familiar faces or if the waves are pumping you can find me in the ocean bodysurfing. One way or another I’m in the water at Bondi 😊

We see Ian almost every morning. And that propeller hat always makes us smile. We finally stopped him to get his story.

“Firstly I have to park my scooter, invariably an unknowing car driver has taken up the space set aside for motor bikes, so it is down to outside the surf club.

I then go for a plod to Bronte. I used to jog/run, now I plod.

When I return to Bondi, it is a coffee at Surfish, definitely the friendliest staff in Bondi.

I save my swimming for the Bronte pool, except on Mondays when I have a brief surf with two friends at Bondi.

I then take my coffee to a bench, listen to a Seinfeld podcast and stare at the ocean. I try to avoid listening to news in the morning, as we are all suffering Trump overload.

I’ve been wearing a propeller hat since 1987. Originally I could not think of a valid reason to put it on, now I can’t think of a valid reason to take it off.

I particularly like assisting tourists at Bondi who are taking selfies, as I offer to take a photo of them. I always ask to be paid $5. Some take me seriously, and I quickly disabuse them, and say I was joking, but I live in hope that some day, someone will actually pay me.”

We love a recommendation for a good podcast.

Friends of friends are great. If you love your friends you’re probably going to love their friends, even their new friends. Unaware that they had all only just met Johnathan and Fionnuala were sitting in the café at the pool with Cathy. We immediately felt the connection and wanted to know more about her.

What is your Bondi story?

“I came to Bondi from Dublin with my husband, Jim, to visit our son Patrick (Paddy) Kelleher and his girlfriend, Lisa Quigley, who have been living and working here since February 2025. Australia was never on our list of places to go, and I still can’t believe I almost missed the chance to visit this beautiful country, especially Sydney.

As an evangelical, all‑year‑round sea swimmer in Seapoint and the Forty Foot in County Dublin, I was naturally drawn to the Bondi Icebergs Pool. Swimming is the cure for most of what ails me. I loved my swims here straight away, but I missed the camaraderie and the chats that are such a big part of sea swimming back home.

That changed one morning when I met Jonathan Nolan and his sister Fionnuala, who introduced me to Melanie, Ruth, Susan and Agnes. Thank you all for being so welcoming and inclusive.

And so, on the other side of the world, I’ve found my swimming tribe and continue the life‑giving ritual of a morning swim, a chat and watching the ocean — the gift that keeps on giving.”

How do you spend the first hour of every day?

“Although I retired in August 2025, I still wake early. The difference now is that I begin my day in a more leisurely way — scrolling on my phone, catching up on texts, playing Wordle, Connections, doing crosswords and reading my book.

One of the joys of retirement is that I can swim practically every day, and my best days begin with an early dip. In Dublin, that might be Newpark swimming pool or Seapoint beach; in Bondi, it’s the Icebergs Pool.

To paraphrase the The Stylistics 1974 soul ballad, swimming “makes me feel brand new.” My mind and body glow afterwards, a sensation that stays with me and lifts my mood long into the day.”

Is there one thing you would like people to know about you?

“I’m a curious person. I’m fascinated by people’s life stories — the more tangential, the better and I love nothing more than a good “small‑world story” and making connections. No matter where I am in the world, I find like‑minded people.

I agree with Maya Angelou*, the American civil rights activist, memoirist and poet, who wrote in The Human Family that despite the “obvious differences / between each sort and type,” ultimately “we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.

* A quick plug: the Art Gallery of NSW currently has an exhibition named after Angelou’s famous collection of poetry, And Still I Rise, featuring a group of culturally diverse women artists living in Australia. It’s well worth a visit!”

The T Shirt was the give away. Not just anyone one can buy one. Do the young ones even know what “Scum Valley” means? Go HERE for a bit Bondi history.

Anyway we couldn’t resist tapping John on the shoulder to get the lowdown.

“I’m a Bondi born and bred boy. I was a former member of South Bondi Surfboard Riders Club, the first Boardriders club in Australia and my mentor was Barry “Magoo” McGuigan. I was also in WindanSea club and the Bondi Longboard Club. Injuries stopped my surfing. I’m also a member of Bondi Golf club and Bondi United.

I guess you could say that I’m a well known local identity. My nickname is Red Ted (Ed: He used to have red hair).

I start my mornings doing stretches before walking a couple of laps of the promenade then have coffee with mates at the Table of Knowledge (We asked – John and his mates take a table in the back of Surfish in the Pavilion courtyard where we imagine they solve global and other issues) . I usually have lunch at the Bikini Bar on Tuesdays and Gelbison on Wednesday.

In 2017 I had Bondi dedicated and gazetted as a Native Surfing Reserve and prior to that arranged for Council to erect a sign in the shape of a surfboard containing the Surfer’s Code at the 2nd Ramp.

Importantly I’m proud of my contribution and being part of the local community. “

You might describe John as the very definition of community man.

We love bumping into Mim but it’s all too rare these days since the Milanese design company she now works for has her travelling regularly between here and Europe.

We used to see her almost daily at the Icebergs where we would catch up, mostly in the sauna (which is an excellent place to do just that).

“The first hours are usually spent walking the shoreline, greeting the sunrise – though in winter it sometimes keeps itself hidden.

In the years when I travelled often, I carried a small vial of Bondi Beach sand with me. It became my own kind of blanket - a small, grounding piece of home in distant places.”

Mary walks to Bronte and back almost every day. And she’s fast! We’ll be boasting about being 91 if we look as fit strong as she does when we get there.

Mary has lived with her husband Jimmy in the same house in North Bondi since 1962. They are both well known characters in the ‘hood.

Jimmy told us that he met Mary at a party in 1955 in Greece. He didn’t get more than her first name and a photographic image of her in his mind. Some time later, after he had moved to Sydney, he went to visit someone in Enmore and lo and behold it was Mary who opened the door.

They were married in 1957 and they have two boys.

This beautiful new addition to the Bondi streetscape seemingly appeared overnight. We couldn’t resist.