Beaches
Silica sand beaches where the white is almost painful to look at without sunglasses.
Australia has a disproportionate number of the whitest beaches on earth because of the prevalence of nearly pure silica sand. Silica is what makes glass white and when the sand is 98 percent silica, the beach reads as brilliant white under full sun and stays cool to walk on. This is the list of the whitest beaches in the country, ranked by independent CSIRO brightness measurements where available.
Lucky Bay and the Whitest Beach Sand in Australia
Lucky Bay holds the official CSIRO record for whitest sand in Australia, measured at 97 percent silica. Wild kangaroos regularly sleep on the beach in the early morning.
Seven Kilometres of Pure Silica Sand
Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays is 98 percent silica over 7 kilometres, and is consistently ranked in the top five beaches in the world.
The Whitest Sand in New South Wales
Hyams Beach on Jervis Bay held the pre-Lucky-Bay Guinness Book of Records title for whitest beach. The sand is almost pure quartz.
A Perfect White Arc of Sand
Wineglass Bay in Freycinet National Park is technically a granite sand beach but the quartz content gives it the same brilliant white appearance, and the pink-granite headlands make the colour contrast unforgettable.
The World's Largest Sand Island
K'gari has Lake McKenzie, a perched sand lake surrounded by 99 percent silica sand, which gives the freshwater its turquoise colour.
Silica sand facts: the whiteness comes from the near absence of iron and organic matter. The grains are also almost perfectly round, which is why the sand feels soft underfoot. The downside is that very fine silica can be dangerously slippery when wet, so watch your step near tide lines and surf zones.
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