Coffin Bay National Park

Coffin Bay in South Australia is famous for its oysters, harvested from the crystal clear waters of the shallow estuary here since the 1800s. Millions of oysters are graded, packed and airfreighted around Australia and to Asia every year from the rich oyster-growing beds.

Not far from the settlement at Coffin Bay is the lesser-known Coffin Bay National Park.

The beach is up to 500m wide with surf rolling five breakers deep into the beach. Behind the beach are huge white sand dunes.

And best of all, there are very few visitors, so here is a chance to make the first set of footprints up a spectacular beach.

How to get there

The quickest way to reach Coffin Bay National Park is to fly into Adelaide, fly across to Post Lincoln and pick up a hire car (available at Port Lincoln airport – but be sure to book ahead). From there, the Port Lincoln Tourist Office will provide maps and information about the local area.

TIP

We stayed in Port Lincoln for week. Given hindsight we would have stayed over night in Coffin Bay at least for a night to soak up the sunset and dawn skies. Also, the oyster factories were all closed the day we were there so it was only luck that we found a processor open who allowed us to see the oysters being cleaned, graded, packed and despatched as air freight.