Looking out over the Five Rocks Headland & Beach
Recently my family and I did a drive up to the Byfield National Park area, which is located around Five Rocks, Stockyard Point, and Nine Mile Beach. Access is 4WD only, so we took along our new Nissan Patrol. This was the first time we’d ever done sand driving, or proper four wheel driving for that matter, so it was exciting to be testing out the 4WD.
Byfield National Park covers an area of around 15,000 hectares or 37,000 acres, so it’s a huge, fairly unspoilt area. Notable features include the huge sand dunes in the Nine Mile Beach area. For more information about camping spots and facilities in the area, please visit this page on the EPA’s website.
Most people visit the Five Rocks area to four wheel drive, fish, camp or explore. Some do a combination of all these things. One good piece of advice for anyone wishing to go and visit this area is to bring someone in separate vehicle along, as there are plenty of potential for getting bogged in soft sand and the like. Anyway, below are some photos of our day trip up there:
Our convoy on the road to Five Rocks, as you can see the whole track there is sand.
Driving down the hill to the Stockyard Point Lookout. From here you can look north to the Five Rocks Headland or south over Nine Miles Beach.
Our parked cars at the Stockyard Point lookout.
The view to the Five Rocks Headland from Stockyard Point.
Looking down to the start of Nine Mile Beach, jutting up to Stockyard Point.
I took this picture from the top of a small hill, overlooking the end of Nine Mile Beach. It was a beautiful place for swimming.
The Orange Bowl. This gigantic pile of orange sand is a great place to rev it up and spin some wheels, but rangers are handing out spot fines for anyone driving in the bowl itself.
love the five rocks boiiii.
I have been up to 5rocks since i was a little child, and i think that the best part is the bowl, i personally think that it shouldn’t get shut down, once that place gets shut down, there will be know where else to go, except people running a muck in town, or places police don’t want them to go, 5 rocks is a great place for camping, and having a great time
i agree its the best part, its just unfortunate that some people decide to break the rules, or do stupid things and ruin it for the people having sensible fun
I recently went up to five rocks, and would just like to make a comment on the orange bowl…
i somehow ended up with a flat tyre up on top of the orange bowl, and stopped to change it. while i was there a ranger came and told me vehicles werent allowed at the top, only at the bottom, and any of the senior rangers would have fined me on the spot (lucky there i guess). he also said that the orange bowl will most likely be closed off to all vehicles within the next year or two, meaning people will then need to walk up there…
Hmmm, thanks for that information Shaune, much appreciated
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Lucky you were caught by a nice ranger, they must really be cracking down on Orange Bowl activities now.
We really need to get up there again before they close everything off, I really want to go down to Five Rocks beach which we didn’t get to last time (the big Five Rocks Beach that is on the north side of the five rocks).
the beach that your talking about is actually called three rivers.. five rocks beach is the small beach on the other side of the headland. [if your facing out to sea its on your right] You cant access it by car you have to walk down to it. The big long one on the left of the headland is three rives. When you get to the end your not suppose to go past the dunes because it is military land that they use for training in connection to shoalwater bay.
Hi Han,
Sorry for such a late reply – I didn’t notice your comment until a few weeks ago!
But yes Three Rivers is the beach I was talking about – thankyou for that correction
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Great quality photos guys..Thanks for sharing them and your info with us. Has been too long since I have been there. Will make a trip real soon. Sadly,it sounds like that little camp spot with shady trees and stream of crystal clear water which runs out of the sand hills is fenced off. Sad! Had a magic weekend there with kids.
Hi Brian, so glad you liked my photos and found the post useful. Yes I think it would be a good idea to get up there before they close everything off. The last I heard they were going to close the Orange Bowl off which is understandable I guess
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Your campsite sounds like a beautiful place to camp, what a pity they closed it.
Jylan