The White Sands Walk, Jervis Bay, Australia

02 Jul 2019

Jon Algie

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The White Sands Walk. The name alone invokes images of calm, clear water lapping onto pristine beaches full of, umm, white sand. Luckily the name holds true. The White Sands Walk, in Jervis Bay, New South Wales, is a path (or series of paths) connecting several stunning white sand beaches. It’s a short, mostly flat walk featuring some great views of the coastline from above and the beaches, especially Chinamans Beach and Nelsons Beach, are top notch.

The White Sands Walk

Chinamans Beach

Hyams Beach is the most popular beach in these parts, and you can basically start the White Sands Walk there. Walk along the beach and then up the road for a short distance and you’ll reach Chinamans Beach. At the end of Chinamans Beach you’ll see a set of stairs, and this is where the White Sands Walk starts (officially, I think – who really knows though!). Chinamans Beach is beautiful (perhaps the best in Jervis Bay), but if you can pry your eyes (and beach towel) away from the white sand for an hour or two it’s more than worth it.

Greenfield Beach

The next beach you’ll come to is Greenfield Beach. There are some views from the path above the beach, but they are mostly shrouded by the forest. We hoped to spot a kangaroo in there, but no luck! Greenfield Beach is another perfect stretch of sand – the water is that exotic blue colour and the sand is similar to what you’ll see at Hyams Beach and Chinamans Beach. If you don’t plan on walking the whole track, you can’t really go wrong with spending time at any of these beaches (except maybe the next one).

Blenheim Beach

This was our least favourite beach on the White Sands Walk (we only took two photos, and neither was good!). It’s still a fine beach but compared with the jewels you will have just walked past it’s nothing special. There seemed to be a lot of families there though (I guess that was another reason for us not to hang around too long!).

Nelsons Beach

This is the last (good) beach on the White Sands Walk is Nelson Beach. The track goes along a ridge above the beach for most of its length and you’ll get some awesome views from up there. We walked right along the top and then back along the beach (for a little while) and then back along the top again. I can’t talk these views up enough – they are beautiful and it’s by far the most “open” part of the track (a lot of the views on other parts of the track are obscured by trees). Nelsons beach itself is great and it’s really long, which gives it an almost deserted appeal. At the far end of Nelson Beach is Plantation Point – we walked all the way along but there isn’t too much to see there so don’t feel like you have to do it. We also checked out another beach just around the corner, but it wasn’t up to much.

The White Sands Walk FAQs

How hard is it? The White Sands Walk is easy and will take you around an hour and a half (return) if you don’t stop for a swim or a lie down at any of the beaches. You’ll probably want to hang out at some of the beaches though so budget for a least a few hours.
Are there places to eat along the way? Not Really. We expected there to be a café or two (or at least a coffee cart or ice-cream van) but there wasn’t. By the end of the walk we were getting hungry, so we ended up rushing back to Hyams Beach, home of the only café that we saw in this area. There’s probably one closer to Nelson Beach (the town of Vincentia is close to the beach), but it’d be a bit of a detour. Your best bet is to bring your own food along.
What about water? We didn’t see any water fountains either but they must be around. There’s a camping area at Greenfield Beach so surely there is drinking water to be found there.
Is it suitable for kids? Definitely – it’s an easy track with very few hilly sections, so it should be fine (obviously depends on your kids though!).

The White Sands Walk connects some of Jervis Bay’s best beaches and is an easy way to explore the area. If you only have a short time in Jervis Bay you could do worse than spend most of it on one of the beaches in this area, but if you have longer there is heaps more to see including Booderee National Park and Huskisson, the main tourist town in the area. You can also go on a dolphin spotting boat trip (we did, and it was great). I’ll be writing more posts about Jervis Bay in the future, so stay tuned!

Are you heading to Jervis Bay? Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below!