A right pointbreak series of almost mythical dimensions, Noosa’s natural beauty is balanced by its staggering inconsistency. The five separate points — from the top, Granite Bay, Ti-Tree, National Park, Johnsons and First Point — all face north, away from the predominant southeast swell, and for real surf rely on wickedly angled cyclone swells and long, Fiji-based easterly wind fetches. At times they’ll lie virtually dormant for months, while most surfers head south toward Sunshine Beach and Coolum for consistent beachbreaks. Yet when the right swell does arrive, it’s pretty fricken sick. Granite is a solid half-hour walk through the bushland of Noosa National Park, and is usually the least crowded and least spectacular of the five. Ti-Tree drives long rights off a bouldery headland into a changeable sandbar/rock setup with some good barrels on lower tides. National Park, right on the park’s border, is what most old school Queensland point surfers think of when they say “Noosa”: a dramatic and difficult takeoff zone known as Boiling Pot, followed by 250-500 yards of reeling, sectiony wall, sometimes running right through Johnsons bay further down the line. First Point, tucked just outside the corner of Noosa’s main beach, is a perfect easy peeling wave absolutely ruled by longboards, and the site of the annual Noosa Surfing Festival, probably Australia’s only real nostalgia-based surfing get-together.
The points are all very sensitive to wind direction; anything from either of the north quarters will play havoc with their thin-lipped long looping walls. Northeast seabreezes can be hidden from in the northern corners of Sunshine and Alexandria Bay, which face out to the east on the other side of Noosa Heads and pick up whatever swell happens to be moving.
