Thursday 25 August 2016

White's beach paradise

Hello everyone!

I am starting this blog as I miss writing and I wanted to combine my 2 passions, writing and photography.  I have been taking photos for nearly 3 years now and I truly love it.  I have finally discovered my passion and I have loved creating my social media presence and learning so much about photography.  I have met some amazing friends through photography and have built up my Instagram account to nearly 10K followers and I have also been an integral part in creating a social photography group account called @igersgoldcoast which hosts regular instameets all over the Gold Coast and has a following of over 12K people.

One of the best things about photography is exploring and discovering places which you have never been to before.  A few weeks ago and close friend of mine, Amanda and I decided to do a mini road trip together and go somewhere we had not been before. We had heard of a beautiful beach called White's Beach which was south of Byron and just north of Lennox Head so we did some research and made plans to venture here on a Saturday together.  We had heard of some very cool caves at White's Beach so we checked out the tide times and planned to head to the caves to get some cool photos on the day.

At 4.15am my alarm went off and to be honest I had second thoughts about our idea of heading down to catch sunrise but once I was up I was excited and looking forward to the day. Amanda picked me up and off we went with all of our gear packed in her car and Siri telling us where to go.

After an hour of driving we headed toward where we thought we were supposed to go and found the car park and loaded up our camera gear in the dark. We headed down a walking track toward the beach and got excited as we heard the waves crashing and as it started to get light.  The views we saw as we came out of the rainforest were absolutely gorgeous.


We wanted to try and find the caves that we had heard about but we knew the tide was too high and we would have to come back at 9am when it was at its lowest so we just enjoyed exploring the deserted beach and watched the sun come up with some incredible cloud action.


Being a photographer on the Gold Coast, you rarely get to experience a completely deserted beach at sunrise so we really just lapped it up for a few hours.

Amanda enjoying the deserted beach
After a few hours we realised the urge for coffee was outweighing the need to explore the beach more so we headed back up the mountain to the car and headed for Lennox Head which was about 20 minutes south.

Arriving in Lennox on a beautiful Saturday morning was a new experience for Amanda who had never been there before. The town is super cute with loads of coffee shops and we found a nice place to stop for breakfast and get that much needed caffeine hit!  If you haven't been to Lennox before I highly recommend it.  I hadn't been for a long time but its just such a lovely little town so close to Bryon but yet so far away from the chaos that Byron has become on the weekends.  The views from the top of the hill looking back down to Lennox are spectacular and we saw so many Dolphins enjoying the perfect conditions.

Had to do a selfie of course!

I was so excited to see the Dolphins!

After our little Lennox tour we decided to head back to White's Beach to find the caves and get some cool shots.  It was already past 9am so we knew we were on a time frame to be able to access the caves before it was too late.  Getting back to the carpark we loaded ourselves up again with our camera gear but this time we took more stuff like our swimmers and towels so we could get in the water as the day was so gorgeous.
Upon arriving back to the beach we noticed a lot more people had arrived and we saw some guys up in the dunes who seemed to be naked!  Amanda:  Oh my god are those dudes nude?  Me: Um, holy crap YES!  Where the hell had we come to?  We tried to be calm and kept walking over to the right side of the beach where we had been told the caves were.  After 20 minutes of rock climbing in thongs that kept having a blow out we started to get a bit over it and frustrated wondering why we couldn't find these damn caves!  A very tanned looking local man was walking toward us and I decided to ask him if he knew about the caves (thank god he had dick togs on).  He said he didn't know about any caves and I then asked if we were at Whites Beach?  He said no, this is King's Beach, Whites Beach is another 15 minutes away down south!  Amanda and I looked at each other and just started laughing, no wonder we couldn't find these stupid caves!!

So we packed up all of our stuff, walked back along the nudey beach and back up  the huge mountain to our car to so we could drive to White's Beach!

After a 15 minute windy drive and messages back and forward to our friend who laughed his head off when we said we were at the nudey beach, we eventually found the pristine White's Beach.  Once again we packed all of our stuff and headed down the mountain to be greeted by such a magnificent scene.
The view from half way down the mountain
We tore down that mountain intent on finding the cave and as we walked around to the right we saw it, a huge big cave which would have been so awesome to explore and take photos in but unfortunately the tide had come up too far and we couldn't access it!!  We looked at each other and just shook our heads, all we could do was laugh and take in the beautiful scenery and the magnificent day and of course take more photos of each other!

Me, striking my best pose!
So our venture to explore and find White's Beach and take photos in the cave was a bit of a failure but we had the most amazing day, discovering the nudey beach, checking out Lennox Head and then taking in the stunning beauty of Whites Beach it was definitely worth the effort.  I would highly recommend taking the kids to White's Beach as it is so protected and when the tide is low you can check out the caves and really do some exploring.  Prepare yourself for the journey back up the mountain which we ended up doing 3 times, twice at Kings Beach and then once here but so worth the effort.
Thank you to my gorgeous friend Amanda for being my partner in crime and we can't wait to go on our next day trip exploring more of this beautiful country!

Katie xx

4 comments:

  1. I just can't move past those first two photos. Absolutely superb.

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  2. Awesome pics and a great story Katie. I used to live in northern NSW and loved visiting Lennox Head. Some great beaches there and some awesome photo locations. Looking forward to more great posts like this!! 😊 👊

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    1. Thanks Anthony, yes I have heard of some more great beaches around there so will definitely be going back soon. Thank you for the lovely comment! :-)

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