The Sunshine Coast’s hardcore surfing center. This is the original hometown of Gary “Kong” Elkerton and Sasha Stocker, among other sturdy, no-BS Aussie power surfers, and they learned many of their lessons at a surf spot called Point Cartwright. This wave, a thick right, draws off man-made groins just south of the Mooloolah River and grinds along with a tube section for around 100 yards before smashing directly into the far groyne. It will gather a crowd of many different surfing types and the mood can get a little aggressive at times.
Another 100 yards further up the point is Platform, a mean, sucking, ledgey right tube over rock reef, ruled these days by Sasha in the footsteps of Kong. A top-to-bottom tube is followed by a closeout which sometimes links down to the normal Point Cartwright takeoff zone. The Platform is a serious wave when it’s on and shouldn’t be fooled with by less experienced surfers. Around the headland heading south, you’ll find a right-and-left reef named Secrets, exposed to the south, which starts breaking at four feet or so and keeps going in a bigger swell. Plenty of beachbreaks beyond that.
Going the other way, Mooloolaba is framed at its northern fringe by the mellow rollers of Alexandra Headland; a right reef leads into sand-bottom peelers, good for just about any surfcraft and ridden mainly by the cruisy older crew on longboards and mid-lengths. Alex has a San Onofre sorta vibe, though the waves are a bit hollower than that famous old semi-hoax zone. Head north of Alex to Maroochydore for a very cool rivermouth left in a good east swell, running off a small sandbar exposure called Pincushion Island. A little further north again you’ll look offshore and see Mudjimba, or Old Woman Island, and its excellent though extremely inconsistent left. It’s 1,100 paddle-strokes off the beach and you’ll think about sharks all the way.