Australia's Cabana Problem

jamesdeluxe said:
When I lived in Chicago 30 years ago, people on the pleasant North Side used folding chairs to stake claims for parking spots in front of their apartments. The practice apparently continues.
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That occurs in Boston as well. In 2014/15, the city received 110 inches of snow. Its snowbanks resembled Tahoe/Mammoth/Revelstoke.

I was lucky to have a 4WD SUV to take any spot without shoveling, but if you had a 2WD sedan - you needed to protect your turf.

Note: I would never touch/move a chair in Southie/South Boston. The North End might be a little scary, too - to fool with someone's spot.
 
I had to disable javascript (thanks EMSC for that suggestion) to get around the WaPo paywall.

The beach cabana controversy is amusing. Australia strikes me as the greatest country in the world for beach lovers. Admittedly the ones Liz and I have enjoyed are Rainbow Beach south of Fraser Island and Cable Beach near Broome, both well off the beaten path. Nonetheless there is such an abundance of nice beaches near all the metro areas as well. Maybe you drive an extra 20 minutes to one that is less crowded??? Sydney's population and available beaches are in the ballpark with San Diego County's and I've never seen that level of people density at a San Diego beach. If you don't like crowds, nobody says you have to go to Santa Monica or Coney Island.

As for those "cabanas," I almost never see them in SoCal. I did see them in Pinellas County, Florida in summer 2020. But midday heat in a Florida summer is so intense you really need to be under complete shade if you're not in the water. We did not go to the beach there midday, sometimes in the early morning but mostly for sunset. Sydney's summer temps are much closer to SoCal's than to Florida's, though I suspect Sydney has some humidity. As discussed before, Brisbane's climate is like Florida's, so I'll be interested in sbooker's take on this situation.

But that idea has come under threat in recent years from attempts to privatize — or Americanize, as some here see it — Australia’s beaches.
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What you pay for at California beaches is parking. Roping off sectors with paid umbrellas and beach chairs is not unheard of here but is much more a Euro thing.
 
I can think of nothing worse than going to a popular beach mid summer with a gazillion other people. Generally I don’t go to the beach before April or after November. April is wonderful in that you don’t get cooked by the sun but the water temp is still about 77 degrees.
 
Sbooker said:
Generally I don’t go to the beach before April or after November.
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Cable Beach was April and Rainbow Beach was November. Broome was a bit humid for my tastes, but Rainbow and Fraser Island weather was as perfect as can be. I think Brisbane's season of oppressive heat/humidity is a bit shorter than Florida's. If I lived in Brisbane I would be at the beach a lot in summer but like Florida early or late in the day and avoiding the most urbanized locales.
 
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