Top Five Friendly and Accessible Beaches in Queensland, Australia

We've all heard about snorkeling and scuba diving along the Great Barrier in Australia, but few know about the fantastic beaches along the edge of Queensland, Australia, starting from one of the Great Barrier Reef's point of departure at Cairns, all the way south to Brisbane. We drove much of the length of Queensland and it is plenty of miles to cover in three weeks. In finding our way around we found the Queensland Country Link Street and Travel Directory of great help and bought it when we got to the country, there's an online resource Australia Map Directory with similar information. Around Cairns and Brisbane, the cities are rather congested and less quiet. Here's my list of beaches where I wish I'd spent more time:

Townsville Beach, Queensland, Australia

We selected a hotel near the Bowling Green Bay National Park in order to watch birds in the area. It turned out to be a real experience finding the hotel since we came in after dark and there's a big loop through the area that leads back to the main highway. There's many places to picnic along the way and lots of birds-some in the trees, some in the beach vegetation, and some on the hard rocky areas along the beach. Access to the beaches are from Highway 1 to The Strand is via highway 9 also known as Sturt Street and then onto a variety of side streets including ones that lead to the Marina and Anzac Memorial Park.

Bowen Beach, Queensland, Australia

The highway passes along the beach front at Bowen making Bowen a lovely town to stop and use the public facilities, enjoy the beach for the day or spend some time. The beach was empty except for birds and thousands of small fish jumping in the surf. The views across the bay are fabulous. This is a picnic, beach walking, swimming location. Also, we drove into town and checked out Mullers lagoon, accessible via the Bowen Connection Road and found many parrots and other birds.

Mackay Beach, Queensland, Australia

Mackay is a quaint town with a good walking path at John Breen Park that has a lake in the center filled with ducks and is accessible from Highway 1 turning onto Malcomson Street. We spent several hours walking along the lake before we got moving and made it to the deserted beach-accessible from Highway 1 via Bridge Road. We were able to take a long swim and shower in the bathroom and redress. The beach is lined with volleyball courts and picnic tables. A few others were around but we managed to swim for about an hour and get a pleasant walk on the long sandy beach. The homes in the area seemed like many small resort towns in the United States, very unthreatening and quaint.

Hervey Bay Beach, Queensland, Australia

Hervey Bay beach is a small lagoon with lots of children playing in the park. We saw more boats beached for low tide than we saw swimmers. We came here for the chance to see dolphin but showed up at the wrong time. Hervey Bay is accessible from Highway 1 via a loop road Highway 57 with a spur that leads directly to the boat harbor. The beach extends a great distance along the edge of town with many picnic tables available.

Cooloola Great Sandy National Park Beach, Queensland, Australia

The Cooloola Great Sandy National Park Beach is a neat place to see more sand piled up than I'd ever seen in one spot. To get to the beach, you follow down a winding hiking trail through the woods. There are places to get out in the sand dunes and some people do so. We traveled down for a walk on the beach. There were many swimmers. The park facilities were located on a bluff above the beach and reachable by staircase. The history of a ship that sank off shore was one of the more interesting aspects of our visit.

Cooloola National Park is accessible from Highway 1 via Tin Can Bay Road from Gympie.

If you have more time, there are many other beaches and beach resorts that are fun to try out in Queensland Australia.

See more Photographs of Queensland, Australia Beaches to see more photographs. If you like beaches, you may also like to read Best Four Offseason Beach Vacation Destinations Save Money.