Elanora to Narrabeen

Elanora really is a hidden leafy enclave on the northern beaches. If you don’t live there you wouldn’t know how beautiful the leafy streets look in autumn with a riot of red and orange. It’s a great place to live when you are bringing up a young family and both of us lived there when our children were younger. Things have changed somewhat since our time there but more of that later.

Starting at the shops and heading toward windy Elanora Road we made our way down the hill towards Narrabeen Lake. Heading south toward the Lake we discovered Narrabeen markets were setting up and our walk was nearly sabotaged by stopping to browse at some of the goods on offer. We pressed on and managed to reach the playground at Wheeler Park at the south end of Narrabeen before we turned back and made our way up to Elanora.  There are many routes you can take to get back to Elanora, all of which involve hills. We went up Woorarra Road (which has some killer hills) and followed it around onto Lumeah Road then back onto Kalang Road and to the shops.

There have been a few changes at the Elanora shops since we lived there – there is a new unit/retail shop development at the corner of Powderworks Road including a great café called Bean & Bread, and the block with the butcher and video shops has gone and will be redeveloped. Fortunately May and Jack’s IGA is still there but unfortunately so is the bakery which has not changed it menu since the 1960’s. 

Bean & Bread Cafe

What a breath of fresh air for Elanora shops – a fabulous, warm and inviting café that serves great coffee and great food. In fact, the food was so good we were still talking about it a week later! The breakfast menu was great - I chose the fritters which were served with bacon and poached egg and Shaz had the breakfast bruschetta which was spinach, bacon and poached egg served on sourdough. They were just delicious and presented beautifully…...we are looking forward to going back and trying something else.

Our Reviews

Elanora to Narrabeen

difficulty:                                moderate – some rather steep hills. (take extreme care of cars on   windy section of Elanora Road)

distance:                                 8.5km return

time taken:                              2.75 hours

parking:                                   Parking bays at Elanora shops

worth doing:                            definitely

dog friendly:                            yes – on leash

Water and toilets are available at the Berry Reserve Narrabeen

Bean & Bread Café

Food:                                      excellent food

Service:                                   great

Ambience:                                great

Would we go again:                   definitely