Sunshine Coast.

The Sunshine Coast is ~60 km of southeast Queensland coast from Caloundra to Noosa, 100 km north of Brisbane and an hour’s drive north of the Goldy. The headline is the Noosa Headland, a string of five north-facing right-hand points: First Point, Johnsons, National Park, Tea Tree Bay, and Granite Bay. They sit inside Noosa National Park and form the 10th World Surfing Reserve, declared in 2020. South of the headland, the open coast runs through Sunshine Beach, Coolum, Maroochydore, and Mooloolaba, with right-hand reef-points at Alex Headland and Moffats at Caloundra. Double Island Point, an hour north, is a sand-bottom right that runs up to 300 m.

The points only switch on with cyclone swell. January through March is when east to north-east pulses out of the Coral Sea wrap into Noosa and First Point lines up. The rest of the year the points sit dormant for weeks at a time. Open beaches and the south-coast reefs run on south-east trade swell, 0.8 to 2 m, most of the year, with June through August the most consistent stretch. The trades themselves blow south-east through the afternoon. That’s offshore on the north-facing Noosa points and onshore on every open beach below.

Water sits at 21 °C in August, 27 °C in February. Boardies year-round, a springsuit on the coldest winter mornings. The Noosa crowd is the first hazard. Longboarders, tourists, and hire-board beginners stack on the same peak when the cyclone is on. Sit wide, take scraps. Bluebottles wash in on north-easterly winds, and the very rare Irukandji sting is possible October through May but unusual this far south. When the trades are up and Noosa is flat, the play is Alex Headland or Moffats, both of which clean up under south-east wind.