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Katy Perry strips down to a bikini at a Bondi bathhouse she takes a break from her Lifetimes Tour

Katy Perry strips down to a bikini at a Bondi bathhouse she takes a break from her Lifetimes Tour

Daily Mail​10-06-2025

Katy Perry is making the most of her time in Sydney.
The American popstar, 40, took a well-deserved break from her Lifetimes Tour and a high energy climb of the Sydney Harbour Bridge at one of Bondi's wellness spots Slow House on Sunday.
The Firework singer indulged in a 90-minute hot magnesium soak alongside her crew in the studio's luxe communal bathhouse and shared a video of her visit on Instagram.
Wearing a simple swimsuit, Katy stood poolside before panning the camera toward her derrière.
'After the bridge climb, slow time,' she teased in the video, clearly revelling in her downtime.
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The Firework singer indulged in a 90-minute hot magnesium soak alongside her crew in the studio's luxe communal bathhouse and shared a video of her visit on Instagram
The American star then uploaded a steamy snap from inside the sauna, posing for a post-soak selfie with her dancers.
Katy and her team enjoyed a late-night period of rest and relaxation that lasted until nearly 2am, a source tells Daily Mail Australia.
On Sunday night, Katy was spotted climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge during the city's Vivid Sydney festival.
At one point, Katy joyfully waved to onlookers below and later held up a small rainbow flag with both hands, grinning as she proudly celebrated diversity and inclusion.
Last week she stunned onlookers stunned as she took a very casual shopping trip in Sydney's western suburbs.
The Roar hitmaker was seen wandering around Lidcombe Shopping Centre on Tuesday, ahead of kicking off her tour.
Katy had daughter Daisy Dove on her hip as she stopped into a series of stores.
Katy strolled by the Aldi supermarket and discount department store Kmart with her small entourage.
She blended in with the locals in a low key ensemble including a grey Celine tracksuit, cap and sunglasses.
The popstar is performing three shows of her Lifetimes Tour in Sydney, bringing all of her iconic hits as well as some of her new tracks from her latest album 143.
She will play her next show in Sydney on Tuesday night.
Tickets to the pop icon's tour, which has received an onslaught of criticism over the last few months, have been in high demand, with the Roar hitmaker announcing two extra shows on the Australian run to accommodate all of her fans.
Taking to Instagram in February, Katy revealed she added an extra show at Sydney's Qudos Bank Arena on June 4 to kick off the Australian leg, as well as an extra Melbourne show at Rod Laver Arena on June 7.
The Grammy-nominated superstar revealed she had been humbled with the success of her Australian tour, with all previous dates now sold out.
Captioning the announcement, Katy said: 'I am so blown away by the incredible demand for THE LIFETIMES TOUR that I will be adding a final show in Sydney and a final show in Melbourne to make sure all my Australian fans have a chance to experience the incredible show I am bringing.'
Katy will now play a hefty 15 Australian shows.
She announced the Australian Lifetimes tour just prior to her turn at the AFL Grand Final in September.
The original run included just one show each for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, however fan demand dictated Katy needed to add two extra Sydney and Brisbane shows.
Crestfallen Adelaide fans expressed their frustration over missing out on their chance to see Katy in the flesh but they were not left out in the cold for too long.
Listening to fan protests, Katy eventually added a run of four shows in the City of Churches.
'I heard you loud and clear Adelaide, I got you!' Katy wrote on Instagram.

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Yolngu power: how a small Indigenous community in the Top End came to dominate Australian art
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The Guardian

time4 hours ago

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Yolngu power: how a small Indigenous community in the Top End came to dominate Australian art

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Now these artists are being celebrated at the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW) in the exhibition Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala. What makes art from this part of Australia so powerful? Curator Cara Pinchbeck says it's partly the Yolŋu appetite for innovation, combined with the stable leadership of Yirrkala's arts centre, Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka, who is co-curator of the AGNSW exhibition. But mostly, Pinchbeck says, it's down to Yolŋu culture: the numerous song cycles detailing the creation stories of the various clans, and their connected designs – from which all art flows. Underpinning this is gurrutu: an all-encompassing system of connection that maps out each person's relationship to not only other people but every other thing. Even just breezing through Yolŋu Power, you get a sense of the vast richness of this culture and cosmology, across almost 300 works in a kaleidoscope of styles, mediums and subjects – from ochred bark paintings of creation stories and intricately decorated larrakitj (hollow poles) to digital projections, detailed depictions of plant life and minimalist abstractions evoking the Milky Way and the estuaries where fresh and saltwater meet. But if you take the time to really read the wall text and look at the detail of the artwork, an even richer story unfolds. It's the story of a people for whom art is inextricably enmeshed with their understanding of the universe and themselves; a community who, since the 1930s, have used art as a tool of cultural diplomacy with outsiders; and a constellation of individuals who have found ways to maintain millennia-old cultural practices, while boldly innovating for changing times. Past the panoramic video and etched road signs at the exhibition entrance, you pass through a darkened curvilinear chamber hung with a series of Rumbal (body) paintings in ochre on bark, depicting ceremonial designs from the 16 clans around Yirrkala. These designs – or miny'tji – are more than decorative: they express identity, ancestral connections, spiritual beliefs and Country itself. They are sacred and ancient. But these works were painted within the last few years, a statement that the cultural foundations and connections remain strong and vital. These miny'tji are the root of what audiences will see in the next rooms. Sometimes the patterns are in plain sight: the shimmering strings of diamonds in works by artists from Maḏarrpa and Gumatj clans, or the striations of straight and curved lines in works by Marrakulu and Rirratjiŋu artists. Sometimes they're merely hinted at – and even when they're not visible in the artwork, they're essential; the indelible cultural DNA of each maker. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Beyond the Rumbal chamber, the exhibition proceeds more or less chronologically, starting with the frontrunners who first painted these body designs on bark, adopting art as a form of cultural diplomacy with balanda/ŋäpaki (non-Yolŋu people). The exhibition closes with an explosion of dazzling innovation, including bark paintings using magenta printer-toner (by Noŋgirrŋa Marawili) and electric blue acrylic (Dhambit Munuŋgurr), and intricately etched sculptures made from mining detritus such as rubber conveyor belts and aluminium signs (by artists including Gunybi Ganambarr). Highlights include detailed and meticulous bark paintings by pioneering artist and activist Narritjin Maymuru, who contributed to the Näku Dhäruk (Yirrkala bark petitions) of 1963, which asserted Yolŋu sovereignty over land leased by the government to mining companies; and shimmering bark paintings by Djambawa Marrawili, including one from the Saltwater series that was successfully used by clans of the Blue Mud Bay area to assert sea rights in the federal court. As the exhibition proceeds, works by women proliferate, the visible shift of senior men permitting their daughters to paint their clans' miny'tji. Other women opted for everyday subjects. An entire room is given over to exquisite secular works on bark, canvas and larrakitj by female artists, including major figures such as Nyapanyapa Yunupiŋu and Gulumbu Yunupiŋu. Plant life is strongly represented, with Malaluba Gumana's mesmerising paintings of dhatam (water lilies) and Djirrirra Wunuŋmurra's delicate depiction of wild yams. 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Why can't you catch a train or tram to Sydney's beaches – and are we dreamin' to think new rail lines could be built?
Why can't you catch a train or tram to Sydney's beaches – and are we dreamin' to think new rail lines could be built?

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Michael Caton enjoys living a short walk from Sydney's Bondi beach, but when the actor needs to venture into the heart of the city for an appointment, he knows to never schedule anything before late morning, well after peak hour. 'You wouldn't dream of taking the bus in the morning,' the 82-year-old says on speaker phone while taking his Toyota RAV4 for a drive. 'They're all full. They just don't really do the job.' When it comes to telling Australians about dreams, Caton has form, of course. His character Darryl Kerrigan in the classic film The Castle coined the catchphrase 'tell him he's dreamin''. Caton also fronted a 1998 campaign by Bondi locals opposed to a controversial plan to extend Sydney's Eastern Suburbs railway line from Bondi Junction to the beach. 'It will be the end of the line for Bondi,' Caton proclaimed at protests against the privately led train extension, the ABC reported at the time. Crowds chanted back at Caton in response: 'Tell 'em they're dreamin'.' Sydney's expansive rail network is Australia's busiest, but it's almost impossible to catch a train to a beach to catch some waves. That's despite a long history of proposals to extend lines to the city's world-famous beaches. Unlike Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach, New York's Coney Island and even Melbourne's Brighton beach, residents and tourists can't catch a train to Sydney's globally recognised Bondi or Manly – or indeed any ocean beach in the eastern suburbs or north of the city. (Cronulla beach, 20km south of the city centre, can be reached by train, but the trip takes an hour.) Instead, beachgoers are forced into often-crowded buses or cars, the latter being expensive and difficult to park on busy days. Roads in summer can be heavily congested. 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But rural politicians and leaders with interests – commonly land speculation – in the comparatively underdeveloped western suburbs continued to support heavy rail. 'It was a competition between those who saw trams as the future and those who believed in trains.' Tram lines sprang up across Sydney's north shore and eastern suburbs, including to the beaches. Sydney developed one of the largest tram networks in the world and services were fast – in many cases speedier than the few modern lines resurrected 100 years later. The expression 'shoot through like a Bondi tram' was born. But Sydney, like much of the world, was then changed by the car. 'Firstly, after world war one, returning soldiers who'd driven trucks in the war bought themselves bus licences, and that drove suburban development away from trams and started the sprawl of Sydney,' Clifton says. 'After world war two, everyone was buying cars, patronage started to drop off, and by that stage the tram network needed serious investment and renewal.' Instead, leaders chose to tear up Sydney's tram network and replaced it with buses, most of which still run today. The decision was popular at a time when buses were cheaper to run and could cope with demand, but it is now seen as foolish by many transport experts. Mathew Hounsell, a researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, describes the destruction as 'the largest organised vandalism in our nation's history'. In the decades since the last service on Sydney's original tram network concluded in 1961, there have been campaigns for new train lines and extensions to beachside suburbs. A 1970s study proposed building a heavy rail line from North Sydney station to the farthest of the northern beaches. Half a kilometre of tunnel was constructed towards Mosman, but the plan never progressed, mostly because of local opposition and challenges in acquiring land and traversing difficult terrain. There were plans to extend rail through Sydney's eastern suburbs – including further than the limited Bondi beach proposal that Caton objected to in the late 1990s. The Eastern Suburbs line to Bondi Junction in the 1970s was a rare example of a rail line built to an already densified part of Sydney in the post-tram era. During construction, about 100 metres of tunnel was built beyond Bondi Junction towards the beach. But it has since been repurposed to turn trains around. There were also proposals for extensions to Maroubra and Malabar that failed to materialise. The resistance to adding rail infrastructure to already settled suburbs was evident in Woollahra, where a partially constructed station on the Eastern Suburbs line was never completed. Partially built platforms remain visible but unused due to resident objections in the 1970s. Recent calls to finish building Woollahra station go to the heart of the nimby v yimby ('yes in my back yard') tension. Generally, increased housing density has been the basis for new train lines being laid in Australia 'A lot of the problem with why these proposals go nowhere is because these suburbs are already well developed, there's already higher density and apartments,' Clifton says. 'So there's less incentive for governments to spend the money without the potential to get an uplift in housing, a return on investment.' The transport academic says this philosophy dictated development in Sydney well before the current Minns government's transport-oriented development program. 'The problem for beach suburbs is that they already had the rail investment when they were growing, and while they've only become denser since, the tram lines have been torn up,' Clifton says. Despite the lack of a train station at Bondi beach, people still flock there. Traffic and parking woes have intensified in the decades since locals successfully defeated the rail proposal. Buses that have filled the void are among Sydney's busiest. Annual ridership on the 333 'from the city to the sea' bus route, which runs as often as every three minutes, has exceeded 8 million in recent years, significantly more than some of Sydney's heavy rail lines such as the T5. Caton is frustrated when catching a crowded bus that has to contend with traffic snaking up the hills of Bondi towards the city – but he doesn't regret campaigning against the train line. 'The train did absolutely nothing for the locals, sure, it was good for getting more people to Bondi, but it didn't do anything for us,' Caton says. His opposition was based on the proposal's lack of additional stations to serve residents along Bondi Road or the north of the suburb. Having just one station at the beach would have led to chaos, he insists. Caton says his anti-trains stance was not nimbyism but admits that in the years since he has rallied with fellow residents against several other proposals regarding local traffic and moves to reduce street parking. 'We are fighting all of these changes, but it's because they're stupid decisions; they don't consult the people who live here.' He says a train to the beach would make more sense elsewhere, such as at Maroubra. For now, Sydney must make do with low-capacity buses. An articulated bus such as those that run to Bondi can hold about 110 passengers compared with an average Sydney train service that moves 1,200 people. Buses also have a bumpier ride, are susceptible to traffic jams and aren't always accessible for older passengers, people with young children and those with disabilities. The lack of trains makes getting to beaches in Sydney harder but the nimby campaigns haven't made the city's sand exclusive. 'There are no gatekeepers,' says Louis Nowra, the author of a biography of Sydney. He notes that the bus between Bondi Junction and the beach only adds 10 minutes to the journey for people travelling from western Sydney, for example. 'If you live in Bondi, you have to put up with crowds and cars. I don't see a train system alleviating that,' Nowra says. Many people prefer less busy parts of Sydney, argues Nowra, who was turned off Bondi after attending a recent literary festival. 'I found the crowds claustrophobic, so I think Bondi has reached saturation point without more fucking visitors.' Asked if it's more difficult to live in Bondi in 2025 compared with 1998, when the rail extension was proposed, Caton is frank. 'Oh God yes, but a train would have turned Bondi into Surfers Paradise.' Given the transport-oriented development focus of the current NSW government, hopes for new rail infrastructure to the beaches are subdued. Clifton says extending existing light rail from Randwick to Coogee beach and from Kingsford to Maroubra beach are the most plausible options. But it would need significant support and campaigning from the local council and community, with Clifton pointing to the City of Sydney mayor Clover Moore's continued lobbying for the George Street light rail. 'If local communities want that, they should be developing plans and … advocating to government for those extensions,' Clayton says. The Randwick council mayor, Dylan Parker, says he would welcome government investing in such extensions. However, the council has not been actively lobbying for them. Guardian Australia understands the incline on Coogee Bay Road has been identified as a barrier to extending the light rail to Coogee beach. While trams historically travelled that route, the gradient could be problematic for the larger rolling stock in use today. Outside of extending light rail, future projects in Sydney are for driverless Metro trains, with the era of extending Sydney's heavy rail network, which has been hamstrung by maintenance problems and union disagreements, considered over. The NSW government is considering potential eastern extensions of the Sydney Metro West line set to open next decade. Proposals include running trains from the CBD to Green Square, the University of New South Wales and on to Maroubra and Malabar – which Randwick council supports.

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