In Her Element: Sophie on Lawrence Hargrave Drive
Some people arrive in the Illawarra and simply settle in. Sophie arrived and felt something shift — a sense of place that she hadn’t quite felt anywhere else. The coast and the escarpment, sitting in quiet opposition to each other, offered her something she wasn’t expecting: permission to belong.
“I honestly cannot decide between the coast or the bush,” she says. “And I think that’s why I’ve made a little life for myself down here — you get the best of both worlds.” One direction offers the infinite ocean. The other, the monolithic rise of the escarpment. There’s no need to choose.
Her connection with this place began about eight years ago, stitched together through two memories that still anchor her. The first was a backyard gig hosted by a friend — one of those evenings where strangers feel familiar and community feels effortless. “Everyone was so warm and grounded,” she recalls. “I didn’t know many people, but it felt like I’d found my place again.”
The second memory is quieter but more vivid: a sunset swim at Tarrawanna Beach before she’d even moved here. The water was glassy. Rainbows shimmered across the surface. Turning back towards shore, that sweeping escarpment held its usual, almost mystical, presence. “It was so magical,” she says. “That moment stayed with me.”
Ask Sophie what the Illawarra gives her and she doesn’t hesitate: grounding. Energy. Inspiration. But mostly grounding. She moves between the city, the coast and travel-heavy seasons of her life, but that drive down the highway- the left turn at Helensburgh, the traverse down Stanwell Tops, the first glimpse of the Pacific- is the moment she exhales. “It feels like it’s always waiting for me to come home,” she says. “It’s a very comforting feeling.”
Her rituals here are simple. A morning coffee in the backyard, phone-free, staring into the horizon. The walk to a secret swimming spot that suits her anxious little dog. If the tide is right, they slip into still water where no one else ever seems to be.
“Secret swimming holes and staring into the horizon,” she says. “Those are the things that ground me.”
When asked how nature shapes her ideas of beauty, self-care or life, she pauses. “I think being in nature is inherently a way to forget about beauty,” she says. Stepping outside, truly outside, interrupts the racing thoughts, the comparisons, the noise. “It reminds you how big the world is, how small we are, and how connected we all are.” She says those insights only arrive when you’re still enough to receive them.
Her essentials when out talking the pooch for a spin are: a book, dry shampoo, an apple and her bag. She’s a light traveller, but always prepared.
And her advice for anyone wanting to deepen their connection with nature?
"Go. Go alone. Go without your phone. Walk, listen, smell, see- uninterrupted. “That’s the deepest way to get that good, replenishing energy from nature.”
