What makes Sydney Pondi beach different? They are 50 miles in the hinterland.

Kristine Carroll lowered herself in the only shade of the beach – a triangle launched by the improvised rescue station – and spread the sun protection on all its freckles.

Squeezing his eyes in the torrid Surogiorno, he looked at his 8-year-old daughter, Zoe, who had already immersed himself in the blue-green water without hesitation. “She is a water girl,” said Mrs. Carroll.

The Pacific Ocean, which gives Sydney, Australia, its iconic coast and some of the most enviable beaches in the world, was almost 50 miles away. A cod of Pellicani sailed and struck nearby, without a seagull in sight. A sign felt brazenly of wavelers of 2 millimeters – less than a tenth of the thumb.

This is the Pondi beach.

No, not Bondi, the sparkling background of Reality Televisionthe stuff of daydreams e Ground Zero Of the Australian Church of Surf and Sand-Ma Pondi, as local people took to call the humble Penrith beach created by man.

Created on a stretch of lagoon in a former quarry at the foot of the Blue Mountains that mark the western edge of the Sydney area, Pondi, pronounced Laghetto eye, is not exactly worthy of a postcard such as the Bondi Beach homonymous. But it has become a welcome paradise for those who live an hour or more in the hinterland from the coast and pay heavy tolls to get there.

Like many cities, the fringes of Sydney’s urban expansion consist of families of the working class, just arrived immigrants and those pushed further and further away from the center The increase in homes of homes. In Penrith and nearby areas, this also means Live with temperatures This can be 30 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the coast, a disparity exacerbated by climate change. In 2020, Penrith was briefly The hottest place on earthWhen the mercury exceeded 120 degrees.

The beach has been opened for a second season in December and so far has cost the state government of about $ 2.7 million. A little more than half a mile of length, it is as long as Bondi Beach.

On a recent Sunday, when a heat warning was in force with 95 degrees high, the children happily sprayed to Pondi with snilels or floats by the swimming pool in the shape of crocodiles and unicorns. Some families have launched a rugby ball, while others cooked a festival of prawns, sausages and a whole roast chicken. A couple of girls lying on the stomach for tanning.

Ms. Carroll, 46, residing for Penrith’s life who works as an education coordinator in a nearby prison, has never had air conditioning at home. The previous night, he said, he drove in the car only for air conditioning, because he was too hot at his house.

Having a beach near his home for his family to refresh himself, rather than having to spend a day of travel throughout the coast to the Costa-Pagare steep prices for tolls, parking and food-was of great help, in particular in a crisis of the cost of life he said he stretched his finances. With her accounting, that trip of that day would have cost her only 12 minutes by car and a 50 cents McDonald’s ice cream for her daughter while she returned home.

“Many people get up their noses, but, friend, it’s free. They think it’s the Bogan Knockoff of Bondi Beach, “he said, historically using the derogatory Australian jargon for an unusual person associated with Sydney’s Western suburbs.

Zoe said he had been to “current Bondi” on a recent weekend for a cousin’s swimming meeting. She liked it but she said that the salt of the ocean water left her with red spots on her skin.

“I like how soft the sand is. In bondi, the sand was too hot,” he said, climbing over the fingers of the feet in the pale sand.

After playing in the water, Elhadi Daia and her three children – aged between 6, 4 and 1 ½ – had walked on a grassy slope with two food trucks. The two elderly people shown themselves hot dogs and a snack of potatoes and started asking for ice cream. The youngest was in a swimming diaper with the words “Fish Are Friends” on it.

Originally from Darfur in western Sudan without outfit on the sea, Mr. Daia said he knows only how to “swim the donkey”, having grown by swimming in the rivers that flooded the rain. He said he arrived in Australia more than a decade ago as a refugee and that he recorded his children in swimming lessons for a true Australian education.

They were late for the swimming lesson that day and decided instead of going to Pondi, of which his neighbor had been enthusiastic for weeks. Mr. Daia, 38, said he was pleasantly surprised and said he would probably return soon.

Diana Harvey said he was skeptical about Penrith Beach before deciding to take a look at a whim on one afternoon in the last weekdays.

He needed a break from his duties of full-time caregiver for his autistic adult son, who keeps her at home almost every day and had not been on the beach throughout the summer-a parody for many Australians who Consider swimming a birth right.

“I was substantially grown up in the water,” said Mrs. Harvey, 52, remembering that her family would spend three hours led by and a beach in the summers growing up. “We are all people who are water here.”

He had sprouted from Pondi in the days of bad summer thinking that he would make a quick 20 -minute dip, but ended up swimming for two hours, the Blue Mountains extended majestically beyond and a large blue sky that reflected in peaceful waters.

Some residents have wondered if a beach so far inland would be essentially A glorified swampAnd there have been short closures about the worries about water quality. The opening week of Pondi in 2023 was spoiled by the tragedy when a man floating on a palette with his children beyond the swimming area drowned.

However, over 200,000 people visited the beach in its first season, according to the state government.

On a recent morning on the weekend, Barbara Dunn’s family was in line before the doors for the beach opened at 10 am, her 6 -year -old daughter rhythm was protruding her head out of the window of their car for excitement.

“Where we come from New Zealand, we would call him a lake,” said Mrs. Dunn, 45 years old. “He does the job. You get you to get you, right?”

The rhythm was limited through the sand with the plastic bucket full of tools for the construction of sand castles. For the following six hours, while the hot sun reached the peak over the head, she began to head towards the mountains, while the crowd then filled diluted, swimmed tirelessly, played in the sand, rolled in the grass of the river.

“He won’t want to go home,” said Mrs. Dunn with a sigh.