Wedding Cake Island is an island off Coogee Beach, Sydney, which protects the beach from most swells. It is also known as Lemo's Island.
The most probable source of the name is the shape of the island - it resembles a wedding cake, particularly when the white water breaks over the island, giving the appearance of 'icing'. Another theory is that bird droppings on the island gave the appearance of icing on a cake. Apparently the island was also formerly called Gingerbread Island.
The island is a good scuba diving spot and also is the site of ANZAC day commemorations by the local surf community. Every year in commemoration of ANZAC day, surfers load up their surfboards and backpacks with cartons of beer and drink, and paddle out on their boards from Coogee Beach to Wedding Cake Island.
In 1975, "Wedding Cake Island" was the title of a popular surf music instrumental single by Australian rock music band Midnight Oil, lead singer, Peter Garrett a local resident. The track was re-released in 1980 on the EP Bird Noises. It was also covered by the Australian surf group The Atlantics on the album Delightful Rain in 2006. The Atlantics often include it as part of their live set, with Midnight Oil's blessing.
Coordinates: 33°55′33″S 151°15′55″E / 33.9259°S 151.2654°E / -33.9259; 151.2654
Famous quotes containing the words wedding, cake and/or island:
“Well, the wedding is over, the good folks are joined for better for worse—a shocking clause that!—’tis preparing one to lead a long journey, and to know the path is not altogether strewed with roses.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“We had hardly got out of the streets of Bangor before I began to be exhilarated by the sight of the wild fir and spruce tops, and those of other primitive evergreens, peering through the mist in the horizon. It was like the sight and odor of cake to a schoolboy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I should like to have seen a gallery of coronation beauties, at Westminster Abbey, confronted for a moment by this band of Island girls; their stiffness, formality, and affectation contrasted with the artless vivacity and unconcealed natural graces of these savage maidens. It would be the Venus de’ Medici placed beside a milliner’s doll.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)