Best Hidden Beaches in Byron Bay

Hidden Beaches in Byron Bay: National Park Tracks and Seven Miles of Empty Sand

Byron Bay's fame has been its greatest practical problem for twenty years: the town has become one of the most visited destinations on the Australian east coast, and the beaches closest to the town centre reflect this. But the national park headland south of Cape Byron and the coast between Broken Head and Ballina contain beaches that are genuinely difficult to find and that receive almost no visitor traffic beyond the immediate local community. Seven Mile Beach, stretching between Lennox Head and the Ballina river mouth, is perhaps the finest long undeveloped beach in New South Wales and is essentially unknown to anyone outside the Northern Rivers surfing community. The Broken Head Nature Reserve beaches, accessible only on foot through littoral rainforest, are closer to empty wilderness than anything most Byron visitors have experienced despite being thirty minutes from the town centre.

Top Hidden Beaches in Byron Bay

Broken Head Nature Reserve Southern Beaches

The Broken Head Nature Reserve begins six kilometres south of Byron Bay and extends south for several kilometres along a coastline of dramatic headlands and small surf beaches separated by littoral rainforest. The main Broken Head beach is accessible by car; the beaches south of it — King's Beach, Whites Beach, and the unnamed coves beyond — require walking through the national park on tracks that are not signposted from the road. King's Beach is a ten-minute walk; the beaches beyond it require thirty to forty minutes of walking through subtropical vegetation on rough tracks. Each beach south of King's is smaller, wilder, and less visited than the one before it. There is no mobile signal, no facilities, and in the southern section, no other visitors on most weekdays throughout the year.

Whites Beach

Whites Beach is a tiny cove at the end of a short but steep track from the Broken Head Nature Reserve car park, five minutes on foot from the parking area and completely invisible from the road. The beach is perhaps two hundred metres long — a crescent of white sand enclosed by headland rocks on both sides — with a surf break that is active on south-east swells and calm in the northerly periods. The snorkelling on the rocks at the southern end of the bay is excellent in calm conditions, with fish populations that reflect the site's freedom from regular human disturbance. Whites Beach is consistently on the unofficial local lists of Byron area's best hidden beaches and consistently absent from any tourist publication. The access track is steep enough to deter casual visitors carrying full beach bags. This is by design.

Seven Mile Beach

Seven Mile Beach stretches from Lennox Head south to the mouth of the Richmond River at Ballina — eleven kilometres of completely undeveloped beach backed by coastal heath and low dunes. The beach receives the same south-east swell that makes Lennox Head's point break famous, and the beach break here is consistent and powerful. Access is from several points along the coast road between Lennox Head and Ballina, all of which require a short walk through coastal vegetation to reach the sand. The beach is virtually unvisited except by surfers who know the right breaks and local dog walkers from Lennox Head and Ballina. There are no services, no signage, and nothing to indicate from the road that one of New South Wales's finest long beaches is a five-minute walk away. Seven Mile Beach is the best-kept secret on the Northern Rivers coast.

Discover More of Byron Bay's Hidden Coast

Byron Bay's finest hidden beaches are a short drive south, within the national park system. Browse our full collection of hotels in Australia and find a Byron Bay base with easy access to the Broken Head tracks and the Lennox Head coast road. For the complete guide to Australia's extraordinary beaches, see our beaches in Australia guide.