Bilbunya beach (WA 23) initially faces south and trends west, gradually curving round to the southwest at 20 km and south by 55 km. The scarp initially parallels the back of the beach 1 km inland, then as the beach swings the gap widens to 5 km, before the scarp turns and trends southwest essentially paralleling the beach its entire length, with the gap gradually widening to 20 km in the south. The 103 km long beach not only changes orientation but also experiences a gradual decrease in wave energy from north to south, which manifests itself in the nature of the surf zone, beach and backing barrier systems and indicated in Table 4.3. The first 30 km of the beach faces southeast and receives high waves averaging over 1.5 m which maintain a rip dominated single bar system and a generally a moderately steep beach face, fronted by a deep trough and the bar. Rips are spaced about every 500-700 m. This section is backed by a wide deflated surface with some inner active transverse dunes. Between 30 and 40 km the shoreline turns more to the southwest and waves decrease slightly with a low tide terrace forming along the base of the beach and an outer rip dominated bar system, with rips maintaining a similar spacing. In lee of this section are the large Bilbunya dunes, massive coalescing transverse dunes that have formed a star dune that reaches about 120 m height. Between 40-55 km the shoreline continues to curve slightly more to the south and waves decrease to 1 m resulting in a continuous low tide bar, with a straight outer bar and usually no rips. Along this section the northern bare dunes gradually stabilise with vegetation and decrease in height. By 55 km the beach is trending south-southwest and wave height is decreasing to less At the southern end of the long Bilbunya beach the shoreline curves sound to trends west and terminates at a small section of low metasedimentary rocks. These are the first non-calcareous rocks on the coast since of Red Rock, 410 km to the east. Between here and Point Malcolm 30 km to the southwest are seven low to moderate energy beaches. All are accessible by vehicle. read more

Beach Length: 0.1035km