Bondi was my safe haven – after today, Australia will never be the same

When I woke up today, Sunday, to learn there’d been yet another mass shooting in the US at Brown University with two dead, I was dismayed at my own lack of surprise – it could never happen here in Australia, I thought. It was a reassuring thought, amid another saddening tragedy.

Unlike the troubled, violent US, Australia boasts some of the world’s strictest gun laws. It has long been a point of pride for the country, and a pull factor as to why I stay here, after moving from the UK 14 years ago. I never take the liberating safety for granted.

I jumped on my bike and, at the last minute, decided to cycle to a different beach for a change – Coogee – instead of Bondi, to enjoy temperatures in the 30s. I always go to Bondi, a few kilometres away. This’d make a nice change, I thought.

Before I’d go to bed this weekend, Australia would experience its second deadliest mass shooting incident in modern history – at Sydney’s Bondi beach. Currently, 12 people, including one shooter, are dead and at least 29 injured. Explosive devices have been found in a car linked to the gunman. The last mass shooting – the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in 1996 – was the catalyst to reform the nation’s gun laws.

As a Brit living in Australia, I sometimes think of the July 7 Tube bombings and Manchester Ariana Grande concert attack and feel somewhat protected from scary incidents of violence and terrorism here. They still happen – but, it feels, less frequently and on a smaller scale.

Bondi, in particular, was my glorious safe haven.

I cycle there every week. Up until last year, it honestly felt like the safest and happiest place in the world. There’s a reason it’s so famous – a beautiful beach next to a wonderfully diverse city, with a world-class ocean pool, Icebergs, where I do laps. It has healthy food, fabulous ice cream, an outdoor gym – it was the picture-perfect paradise, a place that was tranquil, safe, and where everybody smiled.

Then, last year, almost unthinkable tragedy struck when a knife attacker fatally stabbed six people and injured 10 others in just three minutes at a Bondi shopping centre. That incident sent shockwaves through a nation and city where crime is nowhere near as prevalent as big metropolis cities such as London and New York.

After today, Bondi can never be the same. For the foreseeable future, Australia’s flagship beach becomes a place of grief. And of reckoning.

The shooting happened on the first night of Hanukkah, at an event celebrating the religious festival. It targeted the Jewish community and has been designated a terrorist attack.

Bondi was, in many ways, a refuge: from the brutal British cold – especially in December – and from life’s troubles. The minute that cold sea hits you, you forget about everything in the world that has been bugging you. Australia’s remoteness to the world and all its wonders and woes can sometimes feel isolating, even lonely. In Bondi it felt comforting. You were insulated.

On my weekly cycle to Bondi, I’d always smile at the scenes I’d pass. Bondi has a big Jewish community and, without fail, I’d pass people in smart white shirts wearing kippahs. They’d walk alongside women in tiny bikinis and men in small swimmers, plus surfers carrying boards.

Bondi is known for being accepting and multicultural. I was advised of an unwritten etiquette rule about the beach when I first arrived in Australia from London in 2012: “Surfers go to south Bondi, backpackers, families and people from western Sydney go in the middle, then gays go to north Bondi.” Duly, I headed to north Bondi – and found my accepting beachside sanctuary where I could peacefully be myself.

This famous, relatively small beach accommodated all walks of life. Gay men like me could find solidarity in our tiny budgie smugglers, queuing for the world’s best ice cream alongside Jewish men nearby wearing black robes. That’s exactly what made Bondi so very special. We felt like one happy family.

As I cycled home tonight, my phone pinging from loved ones who know my special connection to Bondi desperately checking I’m safe, the usual sound of cockatoos squawking was replaced by audible sirens screeching across the city. Sydney sounded more like New York or LA, and not in a good way.

I’m one of the one in three Australians born overseas. The day I received my Australian citizenship was the happiest day of my adult life – the warmth and safety of this country has provided many with the sanctuary they craved. Shortly afterwards, I visited Sydney’s large Jewish museum to hear Holocaust survivors talk about how Australia offered them refuge at a time their lives depended on it.

Last year, I listened to the audiobook of 100-year-old Eddie Jaku, The Happiest Man on Earth, who discusses his overwhelming gratitude that Australia offered him refuge when he needed it most. He vowed to smile every day in thanks for the precious gift he was given and to honour the six million Jews murdered by Hitler.

Two days ago, opposition leader Sussan Ley announced she wants to slash Australia’s refugee intake. Last month, vile antisemitic chants were heard at a police-approved neo-Nazi rally outside the New South Wales parliament in Sydney, a few kilometres from Bondi.

How rapidly a place of refuge and safety can transform.

This Sunday night, following a sunny weekend, many of us will wash sand off and go to bed scared of an altogether different country from the one we escaped to.

After today, Bondi will have a different reputation. Heartbreaking, after many decades of tranquility and escape from the world’s woes.

Gary Nunn is a British freelance writer living in Australia. Instagram: @garynunn11