On the western side of the Point are the world famous Cactus (1326) and Castles (1327) beaches, and their surrounding surfing breaks (Fig. 4.186). The Penong Road runs along the back of Cactus Beach, with a large camping area set amongst the dune scrub, between the road and beach, and good vehicle and foot access to the back of the beach. There is a small camp store, which provides the only commercial activity in the area. The beaches are 250 and 400 m long respectively. They face west and are backed by a low foredune, bordered by calcarenite bluffs and fronted by exposed beachrock and shallow calcarenite reefs. In lee of the reefs is a narrow high tide sand beach, and while waves can be large on the outer reefs, they are usually less than 0.5 m when they finally reach the beach. However both beaches are drained by strong permanent rips, particularly off Castles. In addition to the Cactus left and Castles right surf breaks off the beaches, to the south of Cactus out on Point Sinclair is Witzigs, Backdoors and Cunns, while off the north Castles bluff is Caves, Crushers and Supertubes. All the breaks are over calcarenite reefs and receive slight protection and cleaner waves owing to refraction around the point and over outer deeper reefs. read more

Beach Length: 0.4km