Explore / Australia · New South Wales
Port Macquarie.
Now
· updated 14 hours agoENE swell holds steady through the week, starting at 1m Thursday dawn and building to a weekend peak of 1.7m Saturday under blown-out north wind. The swell remains consistent in direction and period, gradually increasing from 7 to 10 seconds before dropping slightly Sunday. Wind shifts from glassy early week to moderate mid-week, then strong to blown-out Saturday before easing again. Looks like Thursday dawn under glassy conditions will be the cleanest window before the weekend build.
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About Port Macquarie
Port Macquarie sits on the mid-north coast of New South Wales at the mouth of the Hastings River, ~390 km north of Sydney, roughly halfway between Sydney and Brisbane. The lineup is mostly beach breaks and breakwall corners. Town Beach runs right off the North Breakwall, Flynns Beach is the patrolled foamie zone, and Shelly Beach sits just south of the headland. Lighthouse Beach is the 9 km open stretch running south-east to Lake Cathie, where Middle Rock is the area’s one real reef-point. The 2023 Australian Surf Championships ran here. WSL events skip the town.
May and June are classic for the Mid-North, and June through August is the most consistent swell window off Tasman Sea lows. Summer adds short Coral Sea cyclone pulses. The working window is south-east to east. A typical day is 1 to 2 m with periods between 8 and 14 s. The clean wind is west to south-west through winter, offshore at every break. The north-east sea breeze fills most summer afternoons. That’s when Lighthouse, facing south-east, pays off. It shelters from the wrong wind when the rest of town is blown out.
Water sits at 19 to 20 °C in August, 24 to 25 °C in February, a few degrees warmer than Sydney. A 3/2 covers winter, springsuit or boardies through summer. Rips on Lighthouse work hard, especially through the gutters between the bars. Crowds are light by Sydney or Gold Coast standards, especially at weekday dawn. Sharks are present, as on every NSW beach. 2024 saw a serious white shark attack on a local at Lighthouse, the first there in roughly a decade. Don’t surf alone at dawn or dusk in the murky months. When the swell is small and the wind is wrong everywhere else, Lighthouse or Shelly is the move.