Sandboarding at Birubi Beach

Last spring my husband and I traveled along Australia’s Gold Coast from Sydney to Brisbane. We made a lot of scheduled and unscheduled stops along the way but one of the most unique stops was Birubi Beach.

Birubi was a scheduled stop for us because I read there were several places that offered sandboarding. When I first heard about “sandboarding” I thought it would be like snowboarding…on sand. In my head, I pictured something like this:

Copyright Raphael Koerich

I wasn’t confident we’d be able to look like that guy because we don’t even snowboard (we’re skiers) but I was willing to give it a shot. When we arrived at Birubi Beach we found a small, un-manned kiosk in the middle of what looked like a desert. We waited around for awhile until a man in an oversized buggy showed up. He checked us in and drove us further into the dunes.

When we arrived at a second little kiosk, we realized that our sandboarding expectations were a little off. There were pretty strict rules in terms of what you could and couldn’t do and standing was most definitely on the “couldn’t do” list. This type of sandboarding was more like sand sledding – you grab a little skate board looking sled, truck it up the hill and slide down.

The sand was HOT and STICKY (especially if you just put sunscreen on) but it was just as fun as sledding down a hill full of snow. Plus, crashing in sand is a bit more forgiving than snow. I would know…

Overall it was a fun and unique experience – worth trying at least once.

Did I mention the view on the other side of the dunes was pretty incredible, too?

By Denise Schnider