Wilbinga - sand dune trip
Updated: 5 hours ago
Attendees:
Henry - 105 Series (trip leader)
Paul - Ford Ranger
Don + Jane – GU Wagon 4.2
Sandie – GU Wagon 3.0
Kelvin + Barbara – Pajero
Conor – 79 Series ute (TEC)
3rd September 2026
We met at the Wilbinga Grove Rest Area at 8am on an overcast day that was threatening a little rain here and there, but nothing much to worry about. A quick chat during the drivers’ meeting revealed most people had reservations about getting on to the beach. So we quickly fixed an alternative route to catch most of the planned waypoints without catching any more traumatic water-line beach-recovery memories.
There was a quick discussion about tyre pressures, some people started as low as 8/12psig while others were still over 20psig.
Although it wasn’t really raining, the tracks were already wet so by the time we reached the first dunes it didn’t take much effort to climb up. We all had bit of a play at the northern reserve boundary while getting a good feel for the conditions.
Staying off the beach we crossed plenty more dunes of varying sizes and steepness, there were only a couple that briefly held a few people up, on the whole almost everyone made it up almost every dune every time. In fact, on one of the steepest dunes, Connor managed to idle his 79 almost all the way up in 1st low. The wet ground certainly helped and by now everyone had their tyres down to around 10psig, some going lower to what the guys were calling party pressures.
There were still plenty of wildflowers around, in every direction at times, it really was a beautiful sight to see!
We had lunch on top of some dunes with sweeping ocean views where we could also see the next round of showers incoming, but we still had a good 20min before that was going force our jackets on.
After lunch we took a well maintained track heading east from The Shacks to Bobtail Rd where we found a nice dune descent, only one car opted to take the bypass for clearance concerns. From here we headed to the SW corner of the reserve down a narrow, occasionally rocky track with tall, brightly coloured wildflowers on both sides for most of the way, sometimes even overhead. Thanks Jane for the very good commentary on which flower was which!
After a few more dunes and a very, very short section along not-the-beach, we headed east again on our way out where Kelvin gave us several excellent photo opportunities, lifting a wheel a good meter off the ground, each time more precarious than the last while tackling a modest rock step.
Not wanting to experience the corrugations of Wilbinga Rd for the last leg, we took the slightly more interesting route along the southern reserve boundary. It was at times little more than a dirt-bike track, quite overgrown in other parts and also featured some unwelcomed whoops. Nevertheless it delivered us to the Wilbinga Rd exit without corrugations just after 3pm.
It was a great day out in the dunes, thanks to all who attended! Total trip distance was 42km.
Report by Henry
