Sydney tourists on dangerous rock spark online debate

Tourists on the Wedding Cake Rock. Photo/ desala24/Reddit

Aussies have taken to social media to criticise tourists who scaled a 1.6m-tall fence to take pictures from the top of Wedding Cake Rock, south of Sydney.

The precarious cliff ledge, accessed via a National Park walk from Bundeena, is fenced off, with officials having warned for years the dangers of the site.

A 2015 report said that the famous cream-coloured ledge could collapse at any time "without warning" into the sea below.

At the time, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) said that the ledge was "precariously balancing on the edge of the cliff and severely undercut".

Since then, the NPWS has twice erected fencing at the site, threatened fines of up to $3615, enlisted help from NSW Police for patrols, and installed large signage to deter people from standing on the rock.

Fencing around Wedding Cake Rock. Photo/ National Parks and Wildlife Service

Now, pictures posted to Reddit have sparked more debate after the images showed a trio of tourists on the ledge taking pictures at the famous attraction, with one sitting on the edge.

"People are willing to risk their lives for a good Insta," one person commented.

"Ah yes, the self-entitled 'rules don't apply to me' tourists. And these are the type that have a whinge on social media about how stupid our country is," another wrote.

"Are you kidding me? You literally went around a fence with signs that say cliff is unstable to do this. You guys need to be caught and fined. You put other lives at risk for your stupid photos. Lives of the SES, police, police rescue just to name a few," another said.

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A quick search on Instagram for '#weddingcakerock' returns over 31,000 posts. While most are not pictures of tourists standing on the rock, a few photos show tourists breaking rules and suggests that despite the ban, many people still break the rules.

French student Fabien Ardoin died in 2014 – before the closure of the rock – when a section of the cliff crumbled.

The following year, two men had to be rescued after one fell off the rock and landed on a ledge below.