Four kilometres south of Plank Point the sand flats widen to between 1 and 2 km, further decreasing wave energy at the shoreline. The result is a 22.5 km section of very low energy shore dominated by the wide sand flats, and in places tidal flats, with the shoreline consisting of an irregular, discontinuous series of approximately 20 multiple, northward migrating recurved spits, between one and a few kilometres in length. The spits are usually separated by a combination of mangroves and tidal creeks. In addition to very slowly moving sediment northward, they are also building the shoreline out across the sand flats, leaving behind a series of beach ridge-spit deposits on the backing samphire flats, with usually between six and ten relic beach ridge-spits deposited over a few hundred metres of backing flats. These ridges interfinger with southeast trending, stable longitudinal dunes, which were last active during the drier, windier, colder ‘glacial’ period 20 000 years ago, and which were partially drowned by the sea level rise 6500 years ago. The ‘beaches’ (613) along this section usually consist of a narrow (10 m wide) high tide beach face, backed by low, vegetated beach ridges, then usually a mixture of samphire flats and older ridges, and are fronted by the wide, often vegetated sand and tidal flats. Small wind waves are only present at high tide during onshore wind conditions. This section of coast is backed by some formed roads running between Midgee and Mitchellville; however only the end of the Mitchellville Road (6 km north of Shoalwater Point) provides direct public access, while there are two 4WD access tracks approximately 13 and 11 km north of the point. Four kilometres south of Plank Point the sand flats widen to between 1 and 2 km, further decreasing wave energy at the shoreline. The result is a 22.5 km section of very low energy shore dominated by the wide sand flats, and in places tidal flats, with the shoreline consisting of an irregular, discontinuous series of approximately 20 multiple, northward migrating recurved spits, between one and a few kilometres in length. The spits are usually separated by a combination of mangroves and tidal creeks. In addition to very slowly moving sediment northward, they are also building the shoreline out across the sand flats, leaving behind a series of beach ridge-spit deposits on the backing samphire flats, with usually between six and ten relic beach ridge-spits deposited over a few hundred metres of backing flats. These ridges interfinger with southeast trending, stable longitudinal dunes, which were last active during the drier, windier, colder ‘glacial’ period 20 000 years ago, and which were partially drowned by the sea level rise 6500 years ago. The ‘beaches’ (613) along this section usually consist of a narrow (10 m wide) high tide beach face, backed by low, vegetated beach ridges, then usually a mixture of samphire flats and older ridges, and are fronted by the wide, often vegetated sand and tidal flats. Small wind waves are only present at high tide during onshore wind conditions. This section of coast is backed by some formed roads running between Midgee and Mitchellville; however only the end of the Mitchellville Road (6 km north of Shoalwater Point) provides direct public access, while there are two 4WD access tracks approximately 13 and 11 km north of the point. read more

Beach Length: 0.0225km