Prams, towels, bikes and booster seats are just some of the belongings left at Bondi Beach after Sunday's terrorist attack, with locals asking how something like this can happen in their country.
Mourners were at the memorial area at Bondi Pavilion since the early hours.
Some cry while others straighten the Star of David flag at the foot of the growing pile of flowers.
A woman, who did not want to be named, said she and others helped to pick up the discarded items and lay them out together.
They sit near the waterfront memorial of flowers and messages over looking the sea.
The Israeli Ambassador to Australia arrives in Bondi. Photo: RNZ/Charlotte Cook
"I found two prams, I found a didgeridoo .... people left their car keys ... just lying there in the sand."
Local and business owner Tom Pontidas said said there was an eerie feeling this morning at the beach - it's cloudy and quiet, the roads are closed and there are police and blue tape everywhere.
New Zealand champion surfer Frankie Lewis, who is from Dunedin but lives in the Gold Coast, was visiting Bondi and enjoying the beautiful weather on Sunday when she heard what she first thought was fireworks.
"I remember standing up and I said it was too early for fireworks, that sounded like a gunshot," Lewis told RNZ.
"Moments later, we saw thousands of people running, running for their lives."
She ran to the back door of the cafe she was at to open the gate and let people in for safety.
She started calling for people to come inside.
"A lot of tourists had nowhere to go," she said.
"They were screaming and crying and I said 'you're safe here'."
Lewis said lots of people came into the cafe, including a pregnant woman, children and a woman in a wheelchair, to take shelter.
"We just had this melting pot of people who were terrified."
The shots kept coming, and then it went quiet, and they could hear the police, she said.
"It was the most terrifying thing, but we were all together."
Her friend Daniela Pontidas said she was "incredible" in taking everyone in.
Daniela and her husband Tom Pontidas, co-owners of Lamrock Cafe in Bondi, said people were hiding in their cafe's cool room and toilets.
Daniela Pontidas said she also thought the sounds that day were fireworks.
"But when I looked out the window and you just see ... people running with this terror on their faces and then your heart drops.
"There was a mass swarm of people screaming in terror."
Tom Pontidas said the fear on peoples' faces is what stuck him.
He said the event will be traumatising for those there that day, and the families of those who died.
And possibly some anger - people asking, 'How can this happen here?' he said.
"How can it happen here? How can it happen in Bondi, in Australia?"
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