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Cameras now record the registration of vehicles entering the beach car park, signs define where nudity is allowed, police strictly enforce the law where it is not and a safe beaches committee of “genuine naturists” watches and reports indecent behaviour, says Debra Conomy of Byron Naturists. The council opted instead to try to stamp out acts of public indecency by other means. In 2018 Byron shire narrowly voted down a bid to revoke the clothing-optional status of Tyagarah beach. In both New South Wales and Victoria, councils have been investigating revoking the clothing-optional status of the few legal nude beaches, primarily citing concerns about indecent acts spilling out into surrounding dunes and carparks, rather than with the naturists themselves. The official pushback against nude beaches is not confined to Queensland. We’re going to police it.” Public safety fears “It’s been an unofficial nudist beach,” Noosa Snr Sgt Anthony Cowan told the local newspaper days afterwards. Police said the crackdown came after multiple complaints regarding adverse and predatory behaviour – including masturbation – around A-bay.

“And if you don’t like seeing dangly bits and naked people, you don’t go there.”įor years, such was the status quo at A-bay: frequented by a few, tolerated by most and quietly condoned by authorities.īut the era of turning a blind eye may have come to an abrupt end on 16 April, when police issued seven fines of $287 and four warnings for wilful exposure. “You’ve got to go to a fair bit of trouble to get there,” she says. Ringrose is one of the many Noosa locals who has been to A-bay once or twice over the years, but mainly preferred to leave Edith and the other nudists to their own devices. Retired maths and science teacher Joy Ringrose says she has lived in the Noosa shire for more than 20 years and “doesn’t know anybody” who is unaware of A-bay’s unofficial status. Not that it seems to have been bothering many. While naturism has been important to people like Edith, it has remained a lifestyle on the fringes. Since the 1970s, when she first started visiting Noosa, it has been a place to meditate, ground herself on sand crystals, absorb nourishing vitamin D, inspire paintings and “be at one with life”. ‘A-bay’, as it is known to locals, has hardly been a secret – last year, travel guide Lonely Planet described it as “perhaps the most beautiful of all Australia’s nude beaches”.īut for Edith*, a 68-year-old retired art teacher who was the sole woman among 11 people issued infringement notices for wilful exposure last month, A-bay is – or was – much more than a beautiful beach.

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