Avalon

We start our mornings like everyone else here: bare feet on wet sand, a suspiciously earnest jog past the Avalon Surf Life Saving Club where the kiosk now spills onto the beach and the upstairs restaurant — 'The Avalon' — watches the ocean like it’s on permanent duty. If the tide’s polite we tiptoe to the rockpool at the southern end for a dip; if it’s not, we stare at it like it’s a drama we didn’t RSVP to.

By 9:45 on Thursdays half of us are schlepping into Maria Regina Primary on Central Road or across to the Avalon Annexe at Dunbar Park for playgroup — Playgroup NSW still lists the session times and, honestly, that little convoy of prams and sand-filled shoes is our village parade. When the kids are occupied (20 adults, 10–25 kids, according to the community profile — yes, we counted), we head off on the Barrenjoey-to-Avalon wander or up to Bangalley Headland for the views that make us smug.

Petty local drama? Oh, we’ve got a file. Jamie Durie’s six-storey, off-grid mega-house — which took a decade to plan and two years to build — gave the neighbourhood the kind of existential crisis usually reserved for reality TV: more than 50 submissions from cranky neighbours, as Pedestrian lovingly documented. And remember when Northern Beaches Council signed a 10-year lease for the surf-club dining spot with Sunny Amarpreet Singh’s A.K.C.N Group? Change takes time, and opinions take louder.

Who would hate Avalon? If you can’t abide sand in your slippers, or you need your evenings quiet enough to hear your own polymer kitchen bench, this isn’t your postcode. If you loathe communal life — quick, move inland.

Who will love it? Sea people, small-festival types (we still fondly recall Uncorked Avalon day-trips), families who value local playgroups and the skate park, and anyone who’ll cheer for a new local restaurant — like Masala Cove, which turned heads when it opened in the village late last year. We’re a beach town that reads a little, argues a lot about house designs, and still buys surf wax from the same shark-logo shop. We’ll keep the sand; you keep the attitude.