Garie Beach

What are the best beaches in Queensland Australia?

Thinking of moving to Australia so I was just wondering what place's in Queensland have the best beaches for swimming and surfing.

Public Comments

1. Byron Bay was my fav wiked place to live and work..eveyone is so chilled out.. Noosa Heads is also good a more relaxed, townsie vibe
2. First answer,Byron Bay is not in QLD! Here's a list below * Burleigh Heads * Coolangatta * Surfers Paradise – Main Beach * Broad Beach * Maroochydore * Noosa Heads * Noosa Main Beach * Fraser Island * Airlie Beach & Whitsundays * Hinchinbrook Island * Mission Beach * Kurrimine Beach * Flying Fish Point * Fitzroy Island – Nudey Beach * Turtle Bay * Cairns Beaches: o Cairns Esplanade o Machans Beach o Holloways Beach o Yorkeys Knob o Trinity Beach o Kewarra Beach o Clifton Beach o Palm Cove * Ellis Beach * 4-Mile Beach (Port Douglas) * Daintree Rainforest Beaches
3. The BEST beaches for swimming AND surfing are (in my opinion): Coolangatta, Kirra, The Spit, Alexandra Headlands, Caloundra, Coolum, Noosa, Stradbroke Island (Main & Cylinder), Moreton Island, Rainbow Beach... For livability I'd pick Caloundra or Coolum. But if you're based in Brisbane and slightly motivated, all the Gold & Sunshine Coast beaches are reasonably accessibly (2 hour drive tops.... traffic allowing)
4. Any along the 40 kilometre stretch of the Gold Coast. There are shark nets out there and excellent surf patrols including helicopters. The sand is great. They clean most of the beaches regularly. Surfers Paradise gets cleaned daily by a tractor with a big cleaner on the back. There are police cameras on many of the beaches. Surfers come from all over the world to Surf here and they have many championships here as well.
5. North of Agnes Waters (near Bundaberg) the Great Barrier Reef stops any surf so south of there is the only option if you want surf. Apart from that criterion, I haven't met a beach in Qld that I haven't liked. Surfers Paradise and the Gold Coast are built up, which wrecks them a bit although the beaches themselves are fine. There are lots of deserted stretches of white sand and warm blue water. This is Peregian Beach, a typical beach on the Sunshine Coast just north of Brisbane looking south towards Coolum http://www.flickr.com/photos/iansand/74720679/
6. the further north you go the nicer the beaches are, but at the same time the nicer beaches (ie around airlie continuing north) are shut half the year because of box jellyfish. If you want somewhere you can swim year round i'd say somewhere on either the gold coast or sunshine coast. From personal experience burleigh is a really lovely area and the beaches there are really nice.