Noosa Main Beach

Noosa Main Beach faces north into Laguna Bay, and that rare orientation is what makes everything here work. Southerly swells and winds, which chew up most of the Queensland coast, barely touch this beach. You get calm, clear water most days, the kind of conditions where you can wade out chest-deep and still see your feet.

But walk east along the beach toward the Noosa National Park headland and the picture changes completely. The headland produces five distinct right-hand point breaks that are famous worldwide: First Point, Johnsons, National Park, Tea Tree Bay, and Granite Bay. First Point is the most accessible and the most crowded. On a clean northeast swell it peels for a hundred metres and every longboarder in southeast Queensland seems to be on it. The breaks further around the headland get progressively more powerful and less crowded, with Granite Bay at the far end reserved for strong surfers comfortable with rocks and isolation.

Back on the main beach, Hastings Street runs one block from the sand with restaurants, boutiques, and resorts. It's the most upmarket beach strip in Queensland, which means the parking is expensive and the coffee is more expensive. The main beach is where families set up, and you'll hear more international accents here than anywhere else on the Coast.

The national park headland walk is free and takes about two hours return. You'll see koalas in the trees if you look up, and between June and November, humpback whales breaching offshore. For most people, Noosa is the Sunshine Coast, and it's hard to argue with them.