Best Beaches in Queensland, Australia

Noosa Heads

How can you go wrong at a place called the Sunshine Coast? About an hour and a half north of Brisbane, Noosa is a fantastic place to catch both sun and surf. On a medium sized swell Noosa beach is great for beginners, and local Aussies smeared in zinc oxide are only to happy to show you how to “shred”. Don’t miss the Noosa Festival of Surfing and nearby Noosa National Park, the home of koalas in the wild.

Cape Tribulation Beach

Right offshore of this palm-fringed beach is where Captain Cook’s ship famously ran aground and --voila!--The Great Barrier Reef was discovered. This is also the place where the Daintree rainforest meets the reef, where two UNSECO World Heritage areas lay side by side, and where you feel like yes, all is right in the universe. Day trips from Cairns will bring you here, considered by the local Kuku Yalanji as a sacred place, but plan to spend a night at any one of the rainforest lodges just in from the beach.

Whitehaven Beach

On an uninhabited island in a barely-inhabited island group (The Whitsundays), Whitehaven Beach is the purist’s beach. You will have to catch a day boat out to Whitehaven from the mainland town of Airlie Beach, but the reward is worth the effort to get there. Swim in clear turquoise water, snorkel among the fishes, and dig your feet in the sugar.

Dunk Island

For those of you who remember the tv show “Fantasy Island”, Dunk Island may be your real-life equivalent. Take a ½ hour ferry from the mainland at Mission Beach, or just fly in, dahling. Dunk Island is a resort playground for the rich but conveniently accessible for the day to folks like you and me. The island itself is a rainforest-shrouded mountain, and the beach is divine. Paddle a kayak to a tiny islet, sip cocktails from coconuts, or simply “sunbake” as the Aussies say, on a gorgeous golden beach.

Kirra Point

Dude. The name “Kirra” is synonymous with surfing, and many surfing legends were teethed on Kirra’s rolling barrels. Located just above the state line in Queensland’s southernmost town, Kirra Point reigns as the east coast’s champion maker. Hard-core surfers will tell you that this beach is only a shadow of its former self, destroyed by a government sand-pumping project in 2002, but this is still quintessential Australia. When the swell is right, you’ll see perfect barrels--and perfect bodies, no doubt.

Four Mile Beach

Apparently Nicole Kidman, Keanu Reeves, and Bill Clinton have liked Four Mile Beach at Port Douglas well enough to center their holidays around it. And the sand crabs and starfish like it too. You can easily spend the day here under the swaying palms, and walk—you guessed it—four miles on a beach so firmly packed that horse, foot and motorcycle races have been held here. No development and white white sand make this one of the best beaches in northern Australia.