CRONULLA ESPLANADE IS, IN THE FAINT lifting of the early light, busy with a mix of power walkers, joggers, amateur photographers and besuited surfers gathering as if at a shambolic convention. As the slightest crack of golden light begins to break over the horizon, those with phones pause for long enough to hold them up to the sky and capture it filling with colour. The cacophony of crickets and frogs is soon replaced by the sounds of squawking seagulls, cockatoos and waves thudding onto the sand.
Rising with the sun is a long-held ritual here, with a rotating cast of characters that criss-cross along the path that snakes for some five kilometres from Greenhills Beach to Hungry
