Convent Beach

If you like your beaches quiet, unassuming with a vague hint of devotional history, then Convent Beach is the place for you. Originally named McKittrick’s Beach (after a pioneering businessman) it’s been renamed to recognise the convent that overlooked it from 1900 to 1910. And such a beach deserves an appropriately peaceful name. Tucked into Yamba’s main bay, Convent Beach is a small, narrow affair, with vegetation providing shade, and separation from the houses that line the bluff above. Access is from the backing road with street parking and a track from the southern end of the beach. For its sheltered positon, and though it doesn’t cop much surf (except for swells out of the north east), swimming at Convent Beach isn’t as simple as you’d think. There’s a fair few rocks and boulders scattered around the place, so an appropriate degree of caution is advised. And it may or may not have happened, but they like to imagine that back in the day many novices and nuns (they picture them in the full nun’s habit, looking slightly penguin-ish) would walk this beach, pondering the sandy paradise their particular God created just for them.