Tamarama Beach. Archives

Exploring Tamarama Beach: A Journey Through Its Rich History

Tamarama Park has significantly more to offer the Bronte community than gorgeous views and beachside access. The area is rich with historical significance. Here’s a quick look at the history of Tamarama Park.

Prehistoric Tamarama

Tamarama received its name in the early 19th century. Is it widely believed that ‘Tamarama’ derives from the aboriginal name ‘Gamma Gamma’, which roughly translates to ‘storm’. Its prime location by the beach surrounded by rock shelters made it an ideal location for indigenous occupation.

Evidence of prehistoric settlers can be seen in the 2,000-year old engravings along the coastal walk depicting marine creatures, as well as deposits filled with the remains of ancient fireplaces and discarded shellfish shells. Because of these findings, an undisclosed chunk of Tamarama has been declared a site of archaeological significance by the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Rock shelters and ocean access made Tamarama a prime area for prehistoric settlers.
Photo credit: wyncliffe/Flickr

Sydney’s First Coastal Amusement Park

The Bondi Aquarium was the first of Sydney’s coastal amusement parks, opening in 1887 before exchanging ownership and undergoing a series of revamps, renamings, and rebrandings. The chief attractions at the Tamarama amusement park were the rides, the vaudeville acts, and the aquarium creatures on display.

In 1906, the amusement park was transformed into Wonderland City which remained in operation until 1911, shutting down due to a decline in the public’s interest, not to mention expressions of discontent over the sheer scale of the park giving the community less access to the beach and the ocean. Wonderland City was then purchased by the New South Wales Government, and its site was demolished to make way for what is now known as Tamarama Park.

Wonderland City, 1908
Photo credit: Aussie-mobs/Flickr

Tamarama Today

In memory of Wonderland Park, Tamarama established Wonderland Avenue, a residential area a short walk away from Tamarama Park. Given the beach’s busy nature, Tamarama tends to attract all sorts of visitors from various walks of life. The park has been jokingly referred to as “Glamarama” because of the frequent sightings of celebrities and other A-listers in the area.

Tamarama Park now serves as a community hub within the suburb, acting as a place where residents can walk their dogs, go on jogs and exercise, or simply take things slow with a leisurely stroll or a comfortable picnic in the park’s open space.

Originally published as “A Glimpse of the Rich History of Tamarama Beach”

Tamarama Beach Could Take A Year To Recover From Coastal Damage

Did you know that Tamarama Beach and other Sydney beaches could take over a year to recover after suffering from significant damage brought by the recent big swells and high tides?

Read: A Glimpse of the Rich History of Tamarama Beach

Earlier in April 2022, Waverley Council assessed the impact of the big swells and high tides and discovered that Tamarama suffered damage to garden beds and bin corrals as a large amount of sand was washed up from the beach to the park area.

Waverley Mayor Paula Masselos compared Tamarama to a place hit by a bomb because of the great amount of sand running up into the park and the gardens that have been damaged.

Cr Masselos said “the impacts of climate change are evident as these events become more frequent.”

sydney beaches — Tamarama Beach in 2019 (CC BY-SA 4.0/MDRX/Wikimedia Commons)

“Our staff are securing the areas to make them safe for the community, but it is likely to be many weeks before we can fully restore the damaged areas,” she said.

Council’s staff also discovered there was damage to the promenade and fence above the Wally Weekes pool at North Bondi and the brick fencing on the promenade at Bronte beach was damaged after the water inundated the park.

Works will include rebuilding brick walls, grooming and grading beaches, steel fabrication and netting for Bronte Pool and steel fabrication and concrete repairs at North Bondi Pool and promenade.

A coastal geomorphologist from the University of Sydney believes these beaches would take several months or up to a year to return to a normal state after the surging sea water swept away the sand. With sea levels rising permanently, the public can anticipate more damaging conditions in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, the NSW Government issues forecasts regarding beach conditions through the Beachwatch program.

If you’re planning to swim at any NSW beach, you can view Beachwatch to get the latest information on beach conditions, including the weather, winds, chances of rainfall, and ocean temperature.

Bronte, Tamarama Beach Found to Have Very Low Levels of Microplastics

Did you know that Bronte and Tamarama Beach have some of the lowest levels of microplastics in the sand compared to other beaches in Sydney?

According to a study, Bronte and Tamarama Beach have very low levels of microplastics compared to the other samples gathered across 300 beaches in Australia by the Australian Microplastic Assessment Project.

A total of three million microplastic fragments were collected from the samplings in the beaches, which were then logged into the interactive hot map. It showed that Bronte Beach had just seven microplastic fragments per square metre while Tamarama Beach had three microplastic fragments per square metre. Both are in the green zone for having a very low level of microplastic fragments.

The worst beach has over 4,000 tiny particles of plastic per square metre.

Manly Cove in the Northern Beaches has been marked in the black zone as the researchers sampled 4,051 microplastic fragments per square metre.

AUSMAP Research Director Dr Scott Wilson of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the Macquarie University said this project provided the “most substantial data we have on the scope and impact of microplastics in Australia’s waterways.”

“Australia’s massive coastline makes us particularly vulnerable to microplastics,” Mr Wilson said.

“While we know that we have a big problem with plastic pollution entering ocean currents everywhere, one of the major findings we have uncovered through this project is that most of the microplastics on a shoreline will be from that local catchment.”

AUSMAP said that microplastics levels were higher around urban waterways, in cities and towns with a large population.

Microplastic, which never completely breaks down, can come from activewear clothing, synthetic grasses, rubbish, and many other sources that become contaminants when it’s absorbed in the water, harming marine life that eats the bits of these plastics.

“They’re not just eating the plastic – they’re potentially getting a whole cocktail of chemicals as well.

Volunteers for AUSMAP
Photo Credit: Macquarie University

“We don’t know yet, what the long-term effects will be from ingesting microplastics and how much of these harmful chemicals will find their way into humans.

“What we do know, is that we can’t wait around to find out how bad it is. AUSMAP will help us to track where microplastics are coming from so we can stop it at the source.”

AUSMAP partnered with local governments and state environmental agencies for this project. The next step is educating the public about the best practices to reduce microplastics contamination on the beaches.

The AUSMAP data was cited for the Eureka Prize in 2021 for Innovation in Citizen Science. About 800 volunteers participated in the project that started in 2018.