Ballina – Beaches

In my travelling around the world, I’ve been to a huge number of beach resorts. They all promise beautiful beaches, great weather and fun in the sun. Unfortunately, I grew up in Ballina. The beaches here are just stunning and I’ve yet to find anything that comes close.

Ballina sits on the edge of the Richmond River, where it meets North Creek, just before it flows into the Pacific Ocean. This means a lot of water in every direction. It also means beaches. A lot of beaches. There are beaches on the Richmond River. There are beaches in North Creek. Best of all, there are endless beaches on the Pacific Ocean coast.

The best beaches are the ocean beaches. They are very wide, not developed at all and have the most amazing sand. English people, used to the stone beaches of home, freak out in a good way when they see the Ballina sand. It has a slightly yellow colour and is made of very fine sand grains. It’s everything a beach should be. Fiji sand has too much coral in it. Greek sand has too many rocks. The sand in Thailand is full of sand and rocks. Meanwhile, the sand in the Philippines has too much grit. Come to Ballina. The sand is good!

As with most Australian beaches, the ocean beaches are all surf beaches. This can be a bit much for tourists not used to waves. It’s always funny watching the bright pink sunburnt English tourists falling over all the time in the surf.

Of course, with surf, comes the surfers. The Ballina area has a number of well known surf spots. Lennox Head is renowned for having a great left hand beach break. Or something like that. I’m no surfer. The whole coast is a paradise for surfers, more so even, than Surfer’s Paradise, which is an hour up the coast.

If surf is not your thing, then there’s the river beaches. These are wave free, quite pretty and very popular with families. A few of them sit adjacent to parks, so they’re always packed on weekends on holidays. Being shallow and wave free, there’s also a lot of snorkelling going on in the river. Don’t expect to see millions of brightly coloured coral fish, but there’s enough to hold your interest for an hour or so.

I must admit, that I’ve been spoilt growing up next to such beautiful beaches. People travel the world looking for the perfect beaches. I’ve found them. They’re in Ballina.