Best Fleurieu Peninsula beaches, South Australia
The best Fleurieu Peninsula beaches in South Australia include family-friendly Normanville Beach. Also try 4WD-accessible Aldinga Beach and shipwreck snorkelling hotspot Port Willunga.
Australia is justifiably famed for its beaches, partly because of the sheer number, partly because of the variety. Australian beaches range from the white sand dazzle of Whitehaven Beach on a Whitsundays cruise, to the surf spots near Torquay on the Great Ocean Road.
It’s no surprise that several Australian beach towns have become popular holiday spots. Australians flock to the likes of Lorne in Victoria, Yamba in New South Wales and Mooloolaba in Queensland.
But some areas with fabulous beaches tend to stay off the radar for overseas visitors. These include South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula.
The longing curving Fleurieu Peninsula beaches surround the McLaren Vale wine region. Once you’ve gone for a walk in the Onkaparinga River National Park, visited the delightfully weird d’Arenberg Cube and had a tasting at the Maxwell Wines or Inkwell cellar door, you can enjoy some much-deserved beach time. 3km nude beach Maslin Beach is the closest to the wineries.
Fleurieu Peninsula beaches: Aldinga and Normanville
A series of beach towns line up south of Adelaide along the Spencer Gulf on the drive from Adelaide to Cape Jervis. Aldinga Beach is amongst the most unusual because you’re allowed to drive a car onto the sand. There’s a small reef and aquatic reserve offshore.
A few beaches further south, just after Carrickalinga, Normanville is an absolute charmer. Here, the Bungala River snakes its way out to sea. And the stubby little jetty harks back to the town’s days as a wheat exporting port.
These days, there’s no such industriousness to get perturbed by. It feels, especially on a summer day, like somewhere happy to live the simple life. Kids play cricket on the sand; couples go for leisurely swims as the surf dies down to near-duckpond levels. It’s a very different beach lifestyle to that of, say, Byron Bay, Noosa, the Gold Coast or Bondi. It’s a much simpler, more distilled version of the nostalgic Australian dream. The scene could be from any year in the last seven or eight decades; the sense of happy isolation from the real world screams through. It’s something hard to find. While most people will come to the Fleurieu for the McLaren Vale wineries, it’s this simple, dreamy vision of how life should be that stays in the mind.
Fleurieu Peninsula beaches: Sellicks Beach and Port Willunga
Other top Fleurieu Peninsula beaches include Sellicks Beach, which is framed by hills. Driving a car along the beach here is also allowed. Meanwhile, the beach at Port Willunga is famed for the multi-coloured cliffs behind it. Snorkellers should also enjoy Port Willunga – the Star of Greece shipwreck on the reef can be explored with a mask and fins.
Elsewhere, Rapid Bay is a sea kayaking hotspot and Southport Beach has solid surf. And, on the south coast, you can see kangaroos on Blowhole Beach inside Deep Creek National Park.
More underrated Australia
Stringybark Creek, home of the supposed Ned Kelly Tree.
New Norcia in Western Australia – the country’s only monastic town.
The Murray River Walk near Renmark in South Australia.
The Bonegilla Migrant Camp in Wodonga, Victoria.
The Hobart hotel where Roald Amundsen stayed.