The Balconies & Wedding Cake Rock - The Royal National Park

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Route: Bundeena, Wedding Cake Rock Track, The Balconies, The Waterrun, Wedding Cake Rock, Marley Head, Big Marley Fire Trail, Bundeena

Date: 28/12/2019
From: Bundeena

Parking: Bundeena
Start Point: Bundeena
Finish Point: Bundeena
Region: Royal National Park

Route length: 4.9 miles (7.9km)
Time taken: 02:21
Average speed: 2.3mph
Ascent: 137m
Descent: 124m

Points of Interest: The Balconies, The Waterrun, Wedding Cake Rock, Marley Head

As I have written in previous posts, Royal National Park is a stone's throw from Sydney. It has so far resisted the ongoing bushfires that are consuming vast areas of the Blue Mountains and Kanagra-Boyd national parks (among others) and remains a superb area to explore. That said, I think it's only a matter of time before a stray barbeque, lightning strike or ember sparks a blaze here.

Wedding Cake Rock is a bit of an Instagram icon thanks to its stark colour and shape, and its imposing position overlooking the Tasman Sea. The Wedding Cake Rock Track would take the burden of guiding us there from the small village of Bundeena.

Unlike our last trip to Royal National Park, where we took the Cronulla-Bundeena ferry, we drove to Bundeena, parking on the streets close to the beginning of the track where an information board points out some local areas of interest. The fire track leaves the car park, bound for the bush of the national park.

Leaving Bundeena along the fire trail

Royal National Park (or 'Nasho' to some) is located just south of Sydney. The 150km2 national park is the oldest in Australia having been founded in 1879. In fact, internationally, only Yellowstone in the US is older, having been founded a few years earlier. While most of Royal National Park consists of wide expanses of inaccessible bush, the coastal cliffs are spectacular and make for some fine hiking.

Shortly after leaving the car park, a well-signed boardwalk leaves the fire track, heading for the coastal cliffs. The landscape is typical Australian habitat of coastal heath with flowering shrubs producing copious amounts of pollen and nectar that attract scores of nectar-feeding birds.

The metal walkway across the heath

The metal-covered walkway passes through the shrubs, reaching the sea at the Balconies. Here the cliff top has been eroded been into a series of irregular jagged layers of sandstone that jut out from the cliff. From The Balconies, the track continues south over largely flat ground to the Waterrun where a small stream meets the sea. The erosive forces of wind, waves and floods have shaped the lower ravine into a flat shelf which I imagine looks fairly impressive after some heavy rain.

The Balconies

The Balconies

The Balconies

Approaching the Waterrun

The Waterrun

Crossing the Waterrun, we continued on to reach Wedding Cake Rock, a favourite among the Instagram crowd. The pure white rock stands out against the harder sandstone of the coastal cliffs - its sharp edges and deep cracks giving it a unique shape, like a slice of cake perched high above the pounding ocean.

The Waterrun

Looking back to The Balconies

Coastal cliffs

Interesting erosion in the sandstone

The white colour is caused by iron leaching, which makes the sandstone layers dangerously soft, prone to cracking and at very high risk of collapse. In early 2015, Wedding Cake Rock saw a sudden spike in popularity with visitor numbers rising sharply from 2,000 per month to over 10,000. Instagram has been cited as the cause for the growth in patronage, with users going to the landmark to take pictures on top of it, often while performing a stunt. The spike in popularity became concerning for the National Park Service - the increase in visitors have the potential to tip it. Subsequently, the site was closed off in May 2015

Wedding Cake Rock

Wedding Cake Rock

After the closure, a geotechnical assessment of the rock was conducted to determine the stability of the landmark. The study found, to the surprise of many, that the formation was not only unstable, but was certain to collapse at any time within the next ten years, with the entire structure being described as "precariously balancing on the edge of the cliff, and severely undercut", seeming to be only upheld by very few pieces of debris from a recent major fracture below the rock. You can see this in the photos below. A large fence now deters visitors from standing on the rock.

The large crack beneath Wedding Cake Rock

The rocks precarious position

Passing Wedding Cake Rock brought us up to Marley Head which has a sweeping view of Marley Beach and the smaller Little Marley Beach - a perfect spot to take a short break for a bite to eat.

Little Marley Beach

Marley Head

Marley Head panorama

We backtracked slightly to find the end of the Big Marley Fire Trail where it emerges from the bush, which leads back towards Bundeena. Fire trails crisscross extensive areas of bush serving as access points for containing and managing bush fires. They are also used as fire control lines and for regular management of bush fire risk.

Big Marley Fire Trail

Big Marley Fire Trail

A narrow path leaves the fire trail, leading back towards Bundeena. It arrives in a large, cleared area seemingly called 'Old Bundeena Tip' but I can't find any more information beyond this - it's likely it's just an old rubbish dump. On the other side of the clearing, the path returns to the main Wedding Cake Rock track and the streets of Bundeena, concluding a short but sweet outing.

Bush short cut back to Bundeena

Native bush

The shortcut