16 Best Australia Beaches
Australia’s 10,000 beaches are enthralling due to a combination of world-class waves, swaths of soft sand, and world-class nature reserves. Australia has an immaculate shore to suit every type of beach lover, spanning the tropical shores of North Queensland to the bustling city beaches of Sydney in New South Wales, and Tasmania’s peaceful coves in the south.
Many beaches along the tremendous Great Barrier Reef provide opportunities to snorkel and scuba dive and observe distinctive native wildlife, ranging from seabirds and sea turtles to migratory whales and kangaroos. Others connect to some of Australia’s most scenic outdoor recreation areas, such as Royal National Park and the breathtaking Grand Scenic Drive.
Airlie Beach
Queensland, Australia
Gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, Airlie Beach is a small tourist town in sub-tropical Queensland, about the same distance from the equator as Hawaii.
Airlie Beach is the entry point to the beautiful Whitsunday group of 72 islands, discovered by Captain James Cook in 1770.
All styles of accommodation from backpackers to bed and breakfasts, four and a half star hotels to serviced apartments, rise from the beach and into the lush green hills beyond, and the newly developed Airlie Beach Lagoon provides safe, clean, year-round swimming for all of Airlie’s visitors and residents.
With all this development Airlie Beach has become a remarkably cosmopolitan place with a lively village atmosphere.
During the day life revolves around the marina, the shopping and the lagoon, and at night the bars, restaurants and nightclubs come to life. Markets are held Saturday mornings along the Airlie Beach esplanade.
Airlie can be used as a hub to explore the magical Whitsundays with day trips that offer sailing, trips to the outer Great Barrier Reef, snorkeling and coral viewing, fishing, rainforest walks, visits to a wildlife park, a chance to explore uninhabited and resort islands, scenic flights and diving.
Overnight crewed sailing trips through the islands, and the largest Bareboat Charter Fleet in the world also operate from here giving you the chance to skipper your own boat. National Parks and Wildlife Service covers 74 islands and 50,000 hectares on the mainland.
Shopping facilities in Airlie Beach are generally open seven days. Shopping is also available close by in Proserpine and Cannonvale, with Cannonvale offering trading throughout the working week as well as on weekends.
Bondi Beach
New South Wales, Australia
Bondi Beach is synonymous with Australian beach culture, and indeed the mile-long curve of golden sand must be one of the best-known beaches in the world.
Big, brash and action-packed, the sprawling sandy crescent really is a spectacular sight when you first see it as you swoop down the hill of Bondi Road.
Beachfront Campbell Parade is both cosmopolitan and highly commercialized, lined with al fresco cafes, restaurants, fashion and surfwear shops.
Between Campbell Parade and the beach, Bondi Park, always full of sprawling bodies in fine weather, slopes down to the promenade where there are two board ramps for rollerblading and skateboarding.
Surfing is part of the Bondi legend, the big waves ensuring that there’s always a pack of damp young things hanging around, bristling with surfboards.
The beach is carefully delineated, with surfers using the southern end. There are two sets of flags for swimmers and boogie-boarders, with families congregating at the northern end near the sheltered saltwater pool (free), and everybody else using the middle flags.
The beach is netted and there hasn’t been a shark attack for over forty years.
If the sea is too rough, or if you want to swim laps, there is a seawater swimming pool at the southern end of the beach under the Bondi Icebergs Club on Notts Avenue.
Part of the Bondi legend since 1929, the Icebergs Club – whose members swim throughout the winter, their first plunge heralding the first day of winter – was demolished in 2000 but reopened in early 2002 with an upgraded swimming pool, the addition of a sauna and spa and even a surf lifesaving museum.
Topless bathing is condoned at Bondi, but local women going topless stick to the southern end of the beach, well away from the suburban visitors in the middle and the families at the northern end.
In September, the Festival of the Winds, Australia’s largest kite festival , takes over the beach.
Torquay and Bell’s Beach
Victoria, Australia
Torquay is the center of surf culture on Victoria’s “surf coast”, which extends from Point Lonsdale, on the Bellarine Peninsula, to Lorne; two local beaches, Jan Juc and Bell’s Beach are solidly entrenched in Australian surfing mythology.
If you’re not here for the surf, then there’s not really a lot happening: in hot weather the place is boisterously alive, but out of season it’s somnolent and low-key.
Bell’s Beach is the best known as it hosts an international surf carnival.
Every Easter the world’s top ranked surfers carve up the waves on Victoria’s surf coast during the famous Bell’s Beach AAA international surfing classic. This 11 day surfing competition is a mobile event along 100 kilometers of the spectacular Great Ocean Road.
Bell’s is the longest running and most prestigious World Championship Tour surfing event, with Easter Friday through to Easter Monday as the major finals days.
The world’s top 44 men surfers and top 12 women surfers come to the Torquay to compete for one of surfing’s truly prestigious trophies. Time has proven just what a great event this is.
The Surfworld Museum at the rear of the plaza is devoted to Torquay’s main industry – and a prosperous one it is, taking in at least $200 million a year.
Surfworld features a wave-making machine, interactive videos that explain how waves are created, and displays about the history of surfing. The museum also functions as the Torquay Visitor Information Centre, handing out a few leaflets and brochures.
Many of the biggest surfing businesses are based in Torquay, and every surf accessory conceivable is sold here.
The biggest and oldest is Rip Curl, 101 Surf Coast Highway, which started making surfboards here in 1969 and now stocks all the major brands, as well as its own boards and gear. Based at the same shopping center are showcase outlets for other big names, such as Billabong, Piping Hot and Quiksilver.
Bargains can sometimes be found at Baines Beach Surf Seconds, around the corner on Baines Street (fourth factory on the right).
Cable Beach
Broome, Australia
The outskirts of Broome offer a number of interesting attractions, and a full day could be spent cycling along the following route, which ends at Cable Beach, 6km from town on the ocean side of the peninsula.
The town’s bus service ($2.70, day-passes $8.50) runs daily between the town and Cable Beach, via most of the town’s accommodation centres, and finally returns outside the super-swish Cable Beach Inter-Continental Resort at 6.15pm.
Continuing down Port Drive for 5km, a right turn onto the nine-kilometer dirt road section leads to Riddell Beach.
Walk right along the shore, past the outcrops weathered by eons of wind and water, to Gantheaume Point, where the dark red-sandstone formations contrast sharply with the pearly-white expanse of Cable Beach stretching north.
The old lighthouse is now a beacon, but the pool built by the former keeper for his disabled wife, Anastasia, remains among the tidal rocks. A cast of some 120-million-year-old dinosaur footprints is set in the rocks – the originals are out to sea and only visible at extremely low tides.
Named after the nineteenth-century telegraph cable which came ashore here, Cable Beach extends for an immaculate 22km north of Gantheaume Point.
Washed clean every day by tides that can reach over nine meters, Cable Beach provides the ideal safe environment for swimming and relaxation. Caution however is required between November and March when stingers may be present.
There are a variety of watersport activities available. For a really unique experience you can join the sunset camel rides that operate daily along the beach.
Cars are permitted onto the beach north of the rocks, near the access ramp, but note that several cars a year are caught by up to ten-metre tides around Broome’s beaches: on Cable Beach’s flat sands it can come in very fast.
The area north of the rocks is a nudist beach.
The Cable Beach Tea Rooms overlooking the beach serves some of Broome’s best meals, as does the Diver’s Camp Tavern and bottle shop, on Cable Beach Road. Windsurfers and sailboards are available on the beach during the season.
Coogee
Sydney, Australia
Coogee is a long-popular seaside resort, almost on a par with Manly and Bondi.
Dominated by the extensive Coogee Bay Hotel on beachfront Arden Street, one of Sydney’s best-known music venues, Coogee has had a reputation for entertaining Sydneysiders since Victorian times.
At the northern end of the beach, the dome you can see over the Beach Palace Hotel is an 1980s restoration of the 1887 Coogee Palace Aquarium – in its heyday a gigantic dance floor that could accommodate three thousand pleasure-seekers. Today the hotel is a popular drinking spot for backpackers, who crowd out its oceanfront balcony.
With its hilly streets of California-style apartment blocks looking onto a compact pretty beach enclosed by two cliffy green-covered headlands, Coogee has a snugness and a friendly local feel that its cousin Bondi just can’t match, and since it’s not so bristling with fashion plates, you can still happily wear your old shorts to the beach.
Everything is close to hand: Arden Street has a down-to-earth strip of cafes that compete with each other to sell the cheapest cooked breakfast, while the main shopping street, Coogee Bay Road, running uphill from the beach, has a choice selection of coffee spots and eateries, plus a big supermarket.
The imaginatively modernized promenade is a great place to stroll and hang out; between it and the beach a grassy park has free electric barbecues, picnic tables and shelters.
One of Coogee’s chief pleasures are its baths, beyond the southern end of the beach.
The first, McIvers Baths, for women and children only, is known by locals as Coogee Women’s Pool; it’s suitably secluded, with plenty of hidden rocks. Opposite the entrance, Grant Reserve has a full-on adventure playground.
Just south of the women’s pool at the end of Neptune Street, Wylie’s Baths, a saltwater pool on the edge of the sea, has big decks to lie on and solar-heated showers and is open to all.
Immediately south of Wylie’s, Trenerry Reserve ‘s spread of big flat rocks offer tremendous views and make a great place to chill out.
Four Mile Beach
Port Douglas Australia
Heading north to Mossman/Port Douglas the road meanders along some of the most beautiful, rugged coastline with its beautiful beaches, some completely deserted. You’ll be able to get away from it all completely on your own to take in the beauty of our beautiful country.
A must see at “The Port” is 4 Mile Beach. The beach of beautiful white, hard sand seems to go on forever. Pack a picnic lunch and head out along the beach in the early morning.
From the other side of town you can reach the lookout at the top of this headland. This gives a great view of Four Mile Beach in one direction and towards Cape Kimberley /Daintree in the other direction and out to sea for miles and miles.
From the main Port Douglas district, you can walk to the beach in under 5 minutes and then continue to walk along the sandy beach for hours under the tropical sun.
Four Mile Beach begins at the northern rocky headland – great for kids to explore and play with the small crabs that make the beach their home.
Then the 4 miles of beach unfold in a gentle curve that continues as far as the eye can see, without a hint of development. In fact, the accommodation and houses are neatly hidden behind the swaying palms.
Four Mile Beach has a stinger net during the stinger season. When the stinger net is in place, please only swim inside its protective barriers. Swimming outside the nets exposes you to unnecessary dangers.
Glenelg Beach
Adelaide, Australia
This is Adelaide‘s beach side resort suburb, and it was also the beachhead for the establishment of the colony of South Australia, in the early 1800’s.
Long white, sandy beaches, that are clean and safe, are enjoyed by tens of thousands of visitors here each year.
The Shopping is stretched along Jetty Road. It is a mix of, hotels, fashion stores, supermarkets, souvenir shops, furniture stores, newsagents, banks, film labs, cafe’s, restaurants, in fact there is an almost endless variety.
At the very western end of Jetty Road is a hotel and resort complex called The Grand. Within this Hotel there are a variety of restaurants with completely different styles and themes.
From Moseley Square, the jetty juts out into the bay, and in summer the beach on either side is crowded with people swimming in the calm waters; it’s also a popular windsurfing spot year-round.
The foreshore is also overlooked by the very tacky Magic Mountain, a 1970s mistake of a mock-stone monolith housing a predictable beachside funfair.
In summer you can speed down waterslides, while dodgem cars, bumper boats, mini-golf, merry go round and pinball machines operate all year round.
Also facing the shore, you find the Glenelg Tourist Information. When the centre is closed, you can access information on the 24hr touch-screen terminal outside. Next door, Beach Hire rents out deck chairs, umbrellas, surf skis, body-boards and snorkel sets.
South of Glenelg, Brighton has an old-fashioned, sleepy air, perhaps lent by the stone Arch of Remembrance that’s flanked by palm trees and stands in front of the long jetty, the suburb’s focal point.
Here families and couples wander as joggers, cyclists and skateboarders strut their stuff along the Esplanade.
Running inland from the beach, Jetty Road has a string of appealing one- and two-story buildings shaded with awnings that contain an assortment of art, craft and secondhand stores.
Manly Beach
Sydney Australia
Manly , just above North Head at the northern mouth of the harbour, is doubly blessed with both ocean and harbour beaches, plus bushwalking in the nearby stretch of Sydney Harbour National Park, and a cycling track heading in the other direction.
A day-trip to Manly, rounded off with a dinner of fish and chips, offers a classic taste of Sydney life. The ferry trip out here has always been half the fun: the legendary Manly Ferry service has been running from Circular Quay since 1854, and the service comes complete with a kiosk dispensing the ubiquitous Aussie meat pie.
Ferries terminate at Manly Wharf in Manly Cove, near a small section of harbour beach with a netted-off swimming area popular with families.
Like a typical English seaside resort, Manly Wharf has always had a funfair : although it has now been modernized into a sort of two-storey shopping mall, a colourful Ferris wheel and merry-go-round still light up the waterfront.
Many first-time visitors mistake Manly Cove for the ocean beach, which in fact lies on the other side of the isthmus, 500m down The Corso, Manly’s busy pedestrianized main drag, lined with shops, cafes, pubs and fish-and-chip shops.
The ocean beach, called South Steyne (shading into North Steyne), is recognizable by the stands of Norfolk pine which line the shore.
For a more idyllic beach than the long stretch of South Steyne, follow the footpath from the southern end of the beach around the headland to Cabbage Tree Bay, with two very pretty, green-backed beaches at either end – Fairy Bower to the west and Shelley Beach to the east.
A wonderful long-distance seaside walk starts at Manly Cove. The Manly Scenic Walkway follows the harbour shore inland west from Manly Cove all the way back to Spit Bridge on Middle Harbour, where you can catch bus #180 back to Wynyard Station in the city centre (20min).
The eight-kilometre walk takes you through a section of Sydney Harbour National Park, past a number of small beaches and swimmable coves, Aboriginal middens and some subtropical rainforest.
From Manly Wharf, the West Esplanade leads to Oceanworld, where clear acrylic walls hold back the water so you can saunter along the harbour floor, gazing at sharks and stingrays, and an impressive coral reef display.
Mission Beach
Queensland, Australia
Mission Beach is approximately half way between Cairns and Townsville on Queensland‘s north tropical coast.
Local residents boast that visitors can still find their own secluded coves with their own pristine beaches for the day.
Beach and rainforest walks in World Heritage Wet Tropics, White Water Rafting, Tandem Skydiving, Fishing, Sailing and Sea Kayaking are some popular Mission Beach diversions.
With a multitude of water orientated activities including of course visiting the Great Barrier Reef, Game & River Fishing, Sailing and Kayaking the area attracts thousands of visitors annually.
Relaxing on the uncrowded beach is why everyone comes to Mission Beach. June through September you can swim anywhere, and the water is warm; October through May stick to areas with stinger nets at Mission Beach proper (behind Castaways resort) and South Mission Beach.
Mission Beach is also the gateway to the famous Dunk and Bedarra islands, and a very close (50 minute trip) to the Great Barrier Reef.
If you’re a beachcomber at heart, Dunk will fulfill your dreams. Just 5km (3 miles) offshore from Mission Beach, Dunk was the inspiration for writer E. J. Banfield’s book Confessions of a Beachcomber.
Thick bushland and rainforest cover much of the island’s 12 sq. km (4 3/4 sq. miles), most of which is a national park. The island is renowned for its myriad birds and electric-blue Ulysses butterflies.
Two shopping centers – one at Mission Beach and one at Wongaling Beach service the area with supermarkets, butchers, newsagents, TAB, bakery, greengrocer, Post Office, gift shops, delicatessen, clothing stores, hairdressers, art gallery, dive shop, hardware store and service stations. There is a liquor outlet at Wongaling Beach.
Newcastle
New South Wales, Australia
The city center, positioned on a narrow length of land between the Hunter River to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east, has several popular and pleasantly low-key beaches close by.
Newcastle Beach, only a few hundred meters from the city on Shortland Esplanade, has patrolled swimming between flags, a sandy saltwater pool perfect for children, shaded picnic tables and good surfing at its southern end.
At the northern end, the beautifully painted Art Deco-style Ocean Baths houses the changing pavilions for the huge saltwater pool, which has its own diving board.
Overlooking the water north of Newcastle Beach, Fort Scratchley, built in the 1880s, houses a maritime and military museum.
Beyond the fort is the long, uncrowded stretch of Nobbys Beach, with a lovely old beach pavilion. A walkway leads to Nobbys Head and its nineteenth-century lighthouse.
If you follow Shortland Esplanade south from Newcastle Beach, you’ll come to the huge expanse of King Edward Park, with good walking paths and cliff views over this rocky stretch of waterfront.
One section of the rock ledge holds Australia’s first man-made ocean pool, the Bogie Hole.
Chiselled out of the rock by convicts in the early nineteenth century for the Military Commandant’s personal bathing pleasure, it’s still a fine spot for a swim.
The cliffs are momentarily intercepted by Susan Gilmore Beach – secluded enough to indulge in some nude bathing – then further around the rocks is Bar Beach, a popular surfing spot that’s floodlit at night.
The longer Merewether Beach next door has a fabulous ocean baths at its southern end and a separate children’s pool; overlooking the beach is the Merewether Hotel, a fine place for a drink.
Palm Beach
Sydney, Australia
Palm Beach is an exclusive getaway resort area just 50 minutes drive north of the city of Sydney, NSW and only 10 minutes by seaplane.
Long famous for it’s unspoiled beauty, Palm Beach sits on a narrow peninsula bound on the east by sweeping beaches and the Pacific Ocean, and on the west by more beaches on the edge of Pittwater – a large lake area surrounded by native bushland and a favorite place for sailing.
Palm Beach is a hangout for the rich and famous, with expensive real estate perched in bushland above the beach. You can even get here by Hollywood-style seaplane from Rose Bay.
Palm Beach residents aren’t as concerned about the film cameras as their Avalon neighbors: the eponymous ocean beach, on the western side of the peninsula, leads a double life as “Summer Bay” in the famous Aussie soap Home and Away, with the Barrenjoey Lighthouse and headland regularly in shot.
Beside the Palm Beach ferry wharf – which has regular departures to the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park – is calm Snapperman Beach, fronted by yachts and a shady park, while across the road is the Barrenjoey Boathouse, an upmarket guesthouse and restaurant.
For less cash, try the excellent milk bar serving cheap fish and chips, hamburgers and good sandwiches. There are a few interesting shops to to browse in too, offering Indian clothes and accessories, funky second-hand furniture and women’s clothing.
Perth Beaches
Perth, Australia
Perth’s closest beaches extend along the Indian Ocean’s Sunset Coast, 30km of near-unbroken sand and coastal suburbs stretching north of the Swan River and cooled by afternoon sea breezes.
There are also inshore beaches along the Swan River at Crawley, Nedlands, Peppermint Grove and Mosman Bay on the north shore, and Como, Canning Bridge and Applecross on the south – all are calm and safe for kiddies.
Cottesloe Beach, 7km north of Fremantle, is the most popular city beach, with safe swimming in the lee of a groyne, although in the summer of 2000 a swimmer was taken by a shark. There are ice-cream vendors, cafes and watercraft-rental outlets all just a ten-minute walk from Cottesloe train station.
North of here, Swanbourne Free Beach, cut off by army land in both directions but accessible from the road, has nude bathing. Further north, the surf and currents are more suited to wave riding and experienced swimmers, with fewer beachside facilities, which tends to reduce crowds.
Scarborough Beach, dominated by the Rendezvouzs Observation City Hotel, is as much a holiday resort as a somewhat dowdy beachside suburb with a love of concrete.
Popular with surfers and their groupies, the suburb has an easy-going air of “Californian tan-upmanship”, plus enough services, inexpensive accommodation and activity to sustain a few days out of central Perth.
Rainbow Beach
Queensland, Australia
Rainbow Beach is a young, vibrant coastal town lying between the eastern side of Tin Can Bay and the rolling surf of the Pacific Ocean.
Nestled on the Inskip Peninsula, the town is a comfortable two and a half to three hours drive from Brisbane, with access from the Bruce Highway via Gympie or Maryborough, or four wheel drive from Noosa via tewantin, along the Magical Cooloola coast.
This former sand mining town perfectly situated as the “Gateway to Fraser Island”, is home to around 900 people plus so many attractions that it is an eco-tourism destination in its own right.
Today, visitors take advantage of the numerous activities and attractions throughout the Rainbow Beach area including: Coloured Sands – Walk from Phil Rogers Park, using step access to the beach and walk south at least 2 kilometres to the start of the towering cliffs, preferably walk at low tide.
The Carlo Sand Blow is a popular launching pad for both Hangliding and paragliding enthusiasts. Take the walking track from the water tower at the top of Cooloola Drive and stroll through woodlands to an expansive natural sand blow.
Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world is pounded by surf on one side, while the other is protected by the waterway known as the Great Sandy Strait. It is one of the most superb and safest cruising areas in the world.
- Surfing – the bathing reserve is protected by shark nets for added safety while the Rainbow Beach S.L.S.C. patrol the area every weekend, during the summer season October to April. Professional life guards are on hand during the summer school holidays Monday to Friday.
- Fishing – beach fishing can yield dart, whiting, flathead, bream and tailor. While fishing of the rocky headland can gain you mackerel and kingfish. Boat ramps are at Carlo point and Bullock point, Tin Can Bay inlet estuary fishing and crabbing.
There are a couple of backpackers in Rainbow Beach, as well as a campsite. If you don’t have your own transport then you can get to Rainbow Beach on Polley’s Coaches from Gympie, which run Monday to Friday.
If you do have your own transport it is worth driving to Tin Can Bay, which is just north of Rainbow Beach.
Samurai Beach
New South Wales, Australia
Escape to nature at Samurai Beach Resort (formally Bardots Village Resort), only 15 minutes from the heart of Port Stephens, yet a world away, set in 8 hectares of stunning bushland and nestled on the edge of the magnificent One Mile Beach and Samurai Beach sand dunes.
On this half-mile stretch of white sand, nudists let it all hang out while taking part in volleyball, tug-of-war and Frisbee.
As one of the sportiest nude beaches worldwide, it is only appropriate that Samurai Beach hosts the annual Nude Olympics every November. Events include the Nude Torch Relay, Nude Surfing and the Nude Beach Girl and Guy Competition.
The resort is close to some of the most spectacular surfing and swimming beaches you’ll ever see, and of course offers bushwalkers a whole new part of the world to discover.
Although the beach is mostly used by nudists, some textiles do visit, but tend to stay away from the nudists. Most nudists normally go to the northern end first, and a few groups to the southern end, as the beach is about 1-2km long.
It has clean white sands, nice swimming, and you can go fishing or surfing. There is a caravan park nearby within walking distance.
Comfortable self contained units are available and on-site facilities include a resort style tropical pool, heated spa and beach volleyball court.
Surfers Paradise
Spiritually, if not geographically, Surfers Paradise is at the heart of the Gold Coast, the place where its aims and aspirations are most evident. For the residents, this involves making money by providing services and entertainment for tourists; visitors reciprocate by parting with their cash.
All around and irrespective of what you’re doing – shopping for clothes, sitting on the beach, partying in one of the frenetic nightclubs or even finding a bed – the pace is brash and glib.
Surfers’ beaches have been attracting tourists for over a century, though the town only started developing along commercial lines during the 1950s when the first multistoried beachfront apartments were built.
The demand for views over the ocean led to ever-higher towers which began to encroach on the dunes (not to mention shading them from mid-afternoon); together with the sheer volume of people attracted here, this soon caused serious erosion problems along the entire coast.
Attempts to stabilize the foreshore with retaining walls, groynes and sand pumping from offshore have had little long-term success. But none of this really matters. Though Surfers Paradise is a firm tribute to the successful marketing of the ideal Aussie lifestyle as an eternal beach party, most people no longer come here for the beaches but simply because everyone else does.
Downtown Surfers Paradise is a thin ribbon of partially reclaimed land between the ocean and the Nerang River which – as the Broadwater – flows north, parallel with the beach, past the Spit and South Stradbroke Island into the choked channels at the bottom end of Moreton Bay.
From its dingiest club to its best restaurant, Surfers exudes entertainment, and at times – most notoriously at New Year and Christmas – you can spend 24 hours a day out on the town. Another thing you’ll spend is money; the only free venue is the beach and with such a variety of distractions it can be financial suicide venturing out too early in the day.
The area around Cavill Avenue is a bustle of activity from early morning – when the first surfers head down to the beach and the shops open – to after midnight, when there’s a constant exchange of bodies between Orchid Avenue ‘s bars and nightclubs.
Across the Esplanade, the beach is all you could want as a place to recover from your night out.
In early afternoon, the sun moves behind the apartment buildings, but you can escape the shadows by moving up to Main Beach. If you’re feeling energetic, seek out a game of volleyball or head for the surf: the swell here is good in a northerly wind, but most of the time it’s better for boogie-boards.
North of Main Beach, the Spit ‘s attractions include the world’s first “Versace hotel” – a six-star edifice fitted out with all things Versace – and Sea World, the longest running of the Gold Coast’s theme parks.
Besides various stomach-churning rides, the park features immaculately trained dolphins and killer whales, and helps rehabilitate stranded wild dolphins for later release.
Tamarama Beach
Sydney, Australia
From Bondi Beach, walk past the Bondi Icebergs Club on Notts Avenue, round Mackenzies Point and through Marks Park until you reach the modest and secluded Mackenzies Bay, with convenient large slabs of rock on which to leave your towel.
Next is Tamarama Bay (a fifteen-minute walk from Bondi), a deep, narrow beach favoured by the smart set and a hedonistic gay crowd (“Glamarama” to the locals), as well as surfers.
Topless bathing is the norm here.
Apart from the small Surf Life Saving Club, which offers drop-in yoga classes, the intimate beach has a popular cafe and a small grassy park (not very shady) with picnic shelters, barbecues and a basic children’s playground.
The Sculpture by the Sea festival turns the walk between Bondi and Tamarama into a temporary art gallery for ten days in October.