The 40 km section of southwest facing coast between Cape Carnot and Point Avoid is one of the highest energy in Australia. It faces directly into the prevailing high southwest waves and winds and has been battered by these processes throughout the Holocene. What remains today is 25 km of Pleistocene calcarenite cliffs, averaging over 100 m high and all capped by Holocene clifftop dunes. The cliffs then give way to 15 km long Gunyah Beach. This high energy beach has a double bar 500 m wide surf zone, containing massive beach rips averaging over 500 m in spacing, the largest reaching 1 km in spacing, and placing them amongst the biggest beach rips in the world. Shoal Point is a slightly protruding point in the cliffed section, which on its eastern side has trapped the only remnant of a once massive beach system, a 500 m long pocket of sand (837) at the base of the 120 m high cliffs. The sand beach is backed by steep vegetated slopes, and fronted by a 300 wide surf zone, containing one central beach rip and a permanent rip against the western rocks. A 4WD track runs along the top of the cliffs but there is no access to the beach. read more

Beach Length: 0.5km