Long Reef to Dee Why Lagoon and back to Collaroy





Entrance to walking track

Sometimes you just have one of those days where things don’t go according to plan and so it was this Sunday. With heavy rain on Saturday, we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to walk the next day but the rain held off and we decided to drive to Long Reef and walk to Dee Why for breakfast. Parking in Anzac Avenue (this was the only thing that went to plan), we headed up alongside the golf course to Long Reef Point. The view at the top of Long Reef headland is quite magnificent although it was extremely windy so we didn’t linger too long at the top. Taking the track south towards Dee Why, we enjoyed the magnificent beach views and several times the sun came out, despite threatening black clouds overhead (not to mention the wind again).

This walk is full of variety as you can walk through bush and on a track and parts of it are also on the beach. We noticed that people aren’t so friendly at this end of the northern beaches, there were plenty of walkers and runners but despite our cheery hello, a lot of them just ignored us.  Having said that as we approached Dee Why Lagoon a nice lady stopped us to let us know that we couldn’t cross, as the tide was too high. When the tide is high the lagoon joins the sea making it impossible to cross.  She had left her car in Dee Why the night before as she had drunk too much and had walked back Sunday morning with her husband and dog to pick it up, but wasn’t able to get to it.  We did go and check and sure enough it would have been quite difficult to get across without swimming.  As it was still windy and getting a bit chilly, we didn’t fancy continuing our walk with wet clothes so decided to head back north to Collaroy.



Collaroy Rockpool

 Once at Collaroy we decided to have breakfast at Taste 2 Deli, however, it was absolutely packed, so we very quickly moved onto Billows. Having both had dinner there before, we knew the service and food was good.  This was not to be this time.  After greeting some friends inside, we sat down and waited to be acknowledged.  This didn’t happen but by this time we had decided to move outside so we relocated and again sat down and waited to be acknowledged.  Unfortunately that still didn’t happen so Shaz went inside and helped herself to the menus.  Despite this, they still continued to ignore us, even though they only had two other tables to wait on, so we left.  We were quite bemused that they never once acknowledged us or even seemed to notice we were leaving. Our friend told us that the owner turned up just after this and service improved, so perhaps the young staff were just inexperienced and needed some supervision.

 



Jude's breakfast

 

Heading north again, we stopped at Reef Café and were seated quickly with a menu in front of us.  The menu had the usual brekkie options and Jude opted for an omelette with sausage, cheese and spinach and sourdough bread. Shaz had a pan fried corn cake with bacon , avocado, rocket and a tomato salsa. Jude was somewhat disappointed because she thought the sausage was chorizo but unfortunately it was a plain sausage.    To be fair the menu hadn’t mentioned chorizo but that seems to be standard these days for breakfast sausage.  The service was friendly and quick and the coffees came out at just the right time.  Unfortunately just a bit too much chocolate sprinkled on the top overpowered the coffee somewhat and was a bit messy on the cup. 



Shaz's breakfast

 Even though we had ended up walking approximately 5km in total we did feel somewhat cheated that we didn’t reach our destination and have the choice of all those great cafes on Dee Why Beach.  The rain did set in again later so we were lucky that it held off while we were on our walk. Better luck next week!

Our reviews

 Long Reef to Dee Why (didn’t quite make it so went back south to Collaroy)

difficulty:                   easy to moderate

distance:                    5km from long reef to dee why lagoon back to collaroy

parking:                     on street parking and council parking with Warringah stickers

                                    at entrance to headland 

worth doing               yes (if the tide is not too high)

dog friendly:               Leashed dogs only on the tracks -  not allowed on the beach

Water  - a bubbler is available at the top of Long Reef headland

Reef Cafe

food:                           adequate

service:                       good

ambience:                  okay

would we go again:   maybe