The beach takes its name from the spiky grasstrees dotting the headland at its northern end, where a cluster of modest homes overlooks the shoreline. You'll find the sand a warm beige, firm underfoot, and wide enough that even at high tide there's plenty of room to spread a towel beneath the she-oaks that fringe the esplanade. The water stays shallow for an improbable distance—wade out and you'll still be knee-deep a hundred meters offshore, the seabed rippled and firm beneath your feet.
“Wallabies graze the foreshore at dusk while the tide retreats farther than almost any beach on Queensland's central coast.”
Credit: UnsplashSunset reflecting on wet sand
Local families arrive midmorning with inflatable rafts and eskies, staking out patches beneath the trees. The eastern end of the beach dissolves into a rocky outcrop where the tide pools hold periwinkles and the occasional dart of a fish. There's no surf shop, no gelato stand, no lifeguard tower—just a single picnic shelter, a playground set back from the sand, and a gravel car park shaded by paperbarks.
The trade winds pick up most afternoons, sending small whitecaps across the bay and keeping the temperature bearable even in the sticky height of summer. Stay past five and you'll watch the light turn the water bronze, the sun sinking behind the cane fields that stretch inland. Wallabies venture onto the grass verge as the last beachgoers pack up their cars, entirely unbothered by the human retreat.
