08/02/2024
Our number 4 Beach for 2024 is, Madfish Bay in Western Australia! 🏝️🔥
With 12,000kms of coastline, Western Australia presents a quandary every year selecting a single ‘best beach’ with travellers so utterly spoilt for choice. There are simply too many varied and quiet patches of virgin sand on this, Australia’s longest stretch of coast. So much of the WA coast remains untouched. But the researcher’s finger is so often drawn to the Great Southern. Herein lies a sublime smorgasbord of beaches, found between Esperance to Albany and onwards, west to the famed Margaret River region. Much of this coastal zone lies most favourably within National Parks - so it’s gracefully a natural experience from forest to shoreline. If the beaches are not charming enough, the patchwork of contrasting salty and socially green local villages which dot the seashore and near interior, rugged and remote, are in themselves reason to point south a few hours from Perth. Madfish Bay is a hidden utopia made up of a group of small beaches separated by natural rock outcroppings in the unapologetically blessed William Bay National Park. From Denmark, it’s a 20-minute drive from ‘town’ along the easy-paced ambling coast road, with great scenic locations and places to grab some locally produced picnic goodies and organic coffee along the way. Once you arrive at this famed National Park, it’s quite easy to follow the signs to Madfish Bay. From there you can walk the path down to the secluded beaches and check out this wonderland. Full of sea life, Madfish Bay is a snorkeler’s dream, so bring your goggles and flippers and explore the sheltered bay, or just head down for a relaxing dip in the turquoise waters. The semi-sheltered lagoon is great for kids as the calm waters are shallow close to the shore and, to the right of the bay, there is a drop off into the deeper waters for confident swimmers. The largest of the handful of small islands just offshore is worth a visit when it is safe to do so - if you catch the right time of day with tides, winds and current, the water across the sand bank to get there is only ankle-deep. Once you’ve reached it, you’ll find the island is covered in rock pools to explore. This is also where the two tides meet and, according to local folkore, fish confused by this natural phenomenon, can be seen leaping into the air in a state of ‘madness’. Madfish Bay is the local’s choice for fishing, and you’ll often see people set up around the edge ready to catch their supper, so make sure you bring a fishing rod or hand reel if angling is your thing. ‘Madfish’ will unscale itself to you if you get truly hooked in this delicious Western Australian prize catch, much like the namesake labelled MadFish vineyards of the South West region.
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