Coffin Bay is famous for its oysters and its calm inlets, but cross the park to the ocean side and you find towering mobile dunes and a coast that fights back.
Two parks in one
Most visitors know Coffin Bay for its oysters and its glassy, sheltered inlets, the kind of water that mirrors the sky. But the national park that shares its name keeps a second, wilder face. Cross to the ocean side and the calm gives way to towering mobile sand dunes, surf-pounded beaches and a coast that does not pretend to be tame.
Mountains that move
Above Gunyah Beach the dunes rise like pale mountains, and they are mountains that move: the wind reshapes them constantly, burying and revealing the scrub at their feet. Climb to the top and the Southern Ocean rolls out below, the sand falling away in a long steep slide. There is something humbling about a landscape that will not hold still.
The quiet side
Back toward the township, Yangie Bay offers the park's gentler self: still water, mangrove edges loud with birds, and short walks to lookouts over the tidal flats. It is a place to paddle a kayak or simply sit, and it makes the wildness of the dunes feel all the more dramatic by contrast.
Reading the park
Coffin Bay rewards travellers who venture past the oyster shacks. Carry water, mind the tides if you drive the sand, and give yourself a full day to feel both of the park's faces. The contrast, calm inlet and raging dune, is the whole point.
