Cobblers Beach is the, ahem, first nude beach on the list.
It’s a harbour beach located within the Sydney Harbour National Park. It’s right next to the naval base, HMAS Penguin. I was pleased to find bus no 244 from the city delivered us to within a few hundred metres. Though we found ourselves wondering who among the dwindling passengers were there to get their kit off.
Cobblers is 19 kilometres (12 miles) from home but it felt a million miles from my comfort zone. I was not looking forward to nuding-up but I’d have felt even more uncomfortable sitting clothed on a beach full of naked people.
For what it’s worth I would say we were on the younger side of the average. There seemed to be a mix of straight and gay beach goers. I was somewhat surprised by the amount of manicuring these naturists engaged in — not a lot of natural body hair on many of them. Mitch was surprised by how many wore hats — yeah, good thing your head is covered.
I don’t know when the next nude beach will be; I’m not looking forward to it but I’ll be curious to see how it’s different, if it is, from Cobblers.
Yes, that’s a queue of naked people waiting to purchase coffees and ice creams.
Cobblers is in Mosman LGA, the state district of North Shore (Jillian Skinner, Liberal) and the federal division of Warringah (Tony Abbott, Liberal).
[…] Until recently I was dreading Lady Bay. It is the second of, I think, three ‘clothing optional’ beaches in Sydney (this one granted that status in 1976). The first in this project was beach No 13: Cobblers. […]
Great write up of an underappreciated gem of a beach. I first visited Cobblers when doing the Sydney Skinny swim in 2017, and have since become a regular. It’s a lovely beach with many great and friendly people there, especially on weekends. Hope to meet you and Mitch there one day if you return!