The Best Beach In The World
Driving the Great Barrier Reef from Gold Coast to Carins
There are a lot of reputable sources that like to rank the best beaches in the world… but how do you really objectively rank them and isn’t it dependent on the day you go or the season you go in?
We weren’t sure if we wanted to do a tour to Whitehaven Beach since it is quite expensive, but it was highly recommended to us by several locals, so we decided to stay at Airlie Beach and booked a tour.
There are around ten operators but we didn’t have too much trouble picking Ocean Rafting since they had the most and best reviews. Ocean Rafting has two tours: the Southern Exposure tour goes to two beaches and one snorkeling spot, while the Northern Exposure tour goes to two snorkeling spots and one beach. We chose the latter to get more snorkeling done.
The Ocean Rafting boats have inflatable sides, which we sat on for a more adventurous ride. We were surprised that no one else sat on the sides with us at first, but later on others had a go.
The first snorkeling spot was at Butterfly Bay. It had some nice coral and a few fish, but the spot wasn’t as dramatic or colourful as we were expecting. The next spot, Mantaray Bay, was the big reason we came — it has enormous fish. It’s also the only place where commercial feeding is allowed, so the fish come right up to the boat and swim among people. The Humphead Wrasse fish were enormous.
The next stop on the tour was Hill Inlet Lookout.
The boat dropped us off on a beach and we did a short 10 minute hike up to the lookout. We’d seen a few pictures of the lookout in advertisements beforehand, but actually being there was something else. The view is spectacular and the colour in the water is amazing. It is easily one of the best views we’ve seen in the world.
Collectively, the tour operators seem to have a well-timed system; there were only one or two groups at each of the three lookouts at a time. It probably helped that it also wasn’t high season. The tour guide told us that scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean 5 were shot on the beach here, that the film crew brought in 15 temporary palm trees to the island to simulate a Caribbean backdrop, and that it had cost them around $30,000 per tree.
From the lookout, we could see Whitehaven Beach. It is well known for its pure-white sand, which is 98% pure silica. It’s so white that it does not retain heat, so in the hot afternoon sun it is not burning. The downside is that it reflects a lot of sunlight back up, so, like standing on a snow field, you’d have to squint to look around. Supposedly NASA is the only entity that has been allowed to taken sand from the beach — they used it to make the Hubble Space Telescope.
The tour guide pointed to a blob of white sand sticking out towards us that splits the ocean on the left from the river on the right. He said Ocean Rafting owns 4 of the 5 permits to access that beach, and that all the other tour operators have to go elsewhere. Thinking back on our research of the other operators, it seemed like they all boasted about “exclusive access” to one part of the islands or another, but it was nice to know that we were going to the best part and that it was the part that was visible from the lookout — the part you really want to go to.
When we landed, we found that the sand was truly white and truly fine. It was a magnificent place to take photos and have lunch.
Another unexpected and fantastic aspect of the beach was the champagne effect. Sine the sand is so fine, air gets trapped underneath when the tide goes out and comes back in — so when someone walks through the water, air bubbles percolate to the surface. We spent most of our time on the beach frolicking in the shallows and making bubbles.
Whitehaven Beach was a lot of fun and the experience ended all too soon. At least now we know there’s something to the best beach in the world.
As it turned out, this was the climax of our time in Australia. The last week of our trip was low key. I got sick in the next town so we skipped Magnetic Island (where we were supposed to snorkel and see wild koalas), and then it rained in Cairns, so we spent our days inside planning our next destination — Japan.
