42 Mile Crossing (Coorong)

This is not a structure, a town or a headland — it is the door onto 194 kilometres of Southern Ocean surf beach behind the Younghusband Peninsula, and it is the closest point a two-wheel drive can get to it. A three kilometre road off the Princes Highway takes any vehicle including caravans, and a 1.3 kilometre walking trail crosses the dunes to the sand in about 20 minutes, so you need a four-wheel drive only to drive on the beach itself. The beach is steep, which is the whole fishery: the gutters form close in, and Parks SA's own description is that the steep beach offers good access to deep gutters along the shore where fish hunt for food. Mulloway to 30 kilograms come out of them, with salmon, mullet, snapper and gummy sharks in the same water. Behind the dunes lies the Coorong lagoon, a Ramsar wetland with more than 200 bird species and an internationally recognised pelican breeding ground. It is a national park you happen to fish in rather than a fishing spot with a park attached.

Walk or drive to the sand and read the beach before you rig anything — the gutters are close in and obvious once you know the shape, and the steepness means a long cast is often a wasted one. The mulloway formula on this coast is consistent and worth following: a deeper gutter, a rising tide after dark, an overcast sky, water with some colour in it, and ideally two to four days either side of a full moon. Fresh or live bait beats frozen every time, and the traditional local offering is a bony bream out of the brackish lagoon behind the dunes, which stays alive on a hook for a long time. Rays and gummy sharks are part of the deal on any bottom bait here. Beach sessions generally fish best when dawn or dusk lands on a high tide, while the driving wants low tide, so the trip plan is usually a compromise between the two. Behind the dunes the lagoon fishes completely differently — sheltered, shallow, and the home of the famous Coorong mullet, which is a menu item in Meningie as much as a catch.

Mulloway are the identity fish and the size rule here is the one thing on this page that must not be got wrong. The ocean beach is Southern Ocean water, not Coorong water, so the statewide limit applies: 82 cm minimum, bag 2 and boat limit 6. Inside the Coorong proper, which begins back at the Murray Mouth, there is a second bracket allowing fish of 46 to 82 cm with a bag of 10. That bracket does not reach this beach, and treating it as though it does would put an angler 36 cm on the wrong side of the law. Australian salmon are 21 cm with a bag of 20 for fish of 21 to 35 cm and 10 for larger ones, and large schools patrol the breakers. Mullet are 21 cm with a bag of 60. Gummy sharks are 45 cm, bag 2, counted across all sharks, rays and skates together. Snapper are open in this zone at 38 cm, bag 5 and boat limit 15, and every keeper must be reported through the SA Fishing app. Black bream in the lagoon and the Lakes are closed from 1 August to 31 January, so they are shut right now.

Read the park's current alerts the morning you leave, not the week before — conditions on this beach change with every big tide. Camping is booked and paid through Parks SA before you arrive rather than on the gate, and the same booking system carries the current fees and vehicle access rules, which are worth checking against your plans. Go at low tide, drive only between the high and low water marks, and air down before you commit, because the sand does not negotiate. The crossings each have a personality: Tea Tree is tidal, floods in winter, carries unpredictable water levels and a high bogging risk and is no place for a caravan, while 42 Mile is the quickest and easiest. Bring everything, including bait — Salt Creek is small, and Meningie or Kingston SE are the nearest real supplies. Pipi collecting is closed statewide from 1 June to 31 October, and since 16 April 2026 any bivalve collected in South Australia is bait only and not a feed. Two vehicles is the sensible convention on any long beach run.

The drive in from the Princes Highway is three kilometres and suits any vehicle, caravans included, which makes this the easiest ocean-beach access in the park. From the campground a 1.3 kilometre trail crosses the dunes to the sand in about 20 minutes, so a walk-in session needs no four-wheel drive at all. The campground is spacious and family-shaped with lawned areas, picnic tables and information boards, and it is the only one in the park with year-round walking and four-wheel-drive access to the ocean beach. Every toilet in the park is a pit toilet with no flushing, though the ones here are recorded as wheelchair accessible and free. Carparks are compacted gravel rather than sealed. Camping must be booked before arrival, and fees apply. Dogs are allowed on lead below the high water mark on the ocean beach only and must be carried to and from the beach inside a vehicle, which is unusually specific and worth respecting. The ocean beach track north of Tea Tree Crossing is closed to vehicles from 24 October to 24 December every year to protect the hooded plover, and that closure applies to the beach from Tea Tree Crossing to the Murray Mouth. Mobile coverage is patchy and unreliable, especially in low-lying ground, and Adelaide is a 230 to 250 kilometre drive away through Meningie and Salt Creek.

This is a fully exposed Southern Ocean beach, so a westerly or south-westerly shuts it down and an offshore easterly cleans it up. The steepness is the asset — it is why the gutters form close to the sand and why the fishing works at all. Tides matter twice over: a rising tide for the mulloway, and a low tide for anyone driving. Dawn or dusk landing on a high tide is the regional rule for beach fishing, and this beach honours it. Summer and autumn bring the best travelling weather, while winter floods Tea Tree Crossing and turns the whole run into a different proposition. The Bonney Upwelling and the Murray's outflow both feed this system, which is why a beach with nothing on it holds so much. Parks SA's own warning is that tides here are unpredictable and can turn quickly, which is about how fast the water comes back across a flat beach you are standing or driving on.

Parks SA currently carries a live alert for this beach: conditions change regularly at this time of year because of severe erosion and dune collapse associated with high tides and sea surges, and driving on the ocean beach is described as a high-risk activity that could affect personal safety and damage a vehicle. Take that at face value. The ocean beach is a gazetted road, so speed restrictions apply, quad bikes are banned and only registered motorbikes may be ridden — a fact that surprises people right up until the ticket. Drive at low tide and only between the high and low water marks. Tea Tree Crossing has a high bogging risk and unpredictable water levels, taking a caravan south of 42 Mile Crossing is not recommended, and driving off-track attracts fines and damages Ngarrindjeri cultural sites. Two months of every summer are shut to the north as well, because the beach from Tea Tree Crossing to the Murray Mouth is closed to vehicles from 24 October to 24 December for nesting hooded plovers, and 42 Mile Crossing itself stays open only because it sits south of Tea Tree. The beach is remote, unpatrolled and short on phone coverage, and night surf sessions put you beside deep water in shark country. The sanctuary zone up this coast runs about seven kilometres along the shore, its nearest corner about 15 kilometres north-north-west of this access, and a special purpose area over its beach frontage keeps shore-based line fishing legal there — but nothing else, and nothing from a boat, so check the offshore line on the Department for Environment and Water marine parks map before fishing a long way north.

82 cm, with a bag of 2 and a boat limit of 6. The smaller 46 cm bracket that allows a bag of 10 applies only inside Coorong waters, which begin back at the Murray Mouth. 42 Mile Crossing is on the ocean beach, so the statewide rule applies and a 46 cm fish is well undersize here.

Only to drive on the sand. The three-kilometre road in from the Princes Highway takes any vehicle including caravans, and a 1.3 km walking trail crosses the dunes to the beach in about 20 minutes. That makes it the easiest ocean-beach access in Coorong National Park.

Parks SA currently warns that conditions change regularly because of severe erosion and dune collapse from high tides and sea surges, and calls beach driving a high-risk activity for both people and vehicles. The beach is a gazetted road, so normal road law applies, and you may drive only between the high and low water marks, at low tide. Check the park alerts before you go and take a second vehicle on any long run.

Surf mulloway are the drawcard, with fish to 30 kg reported, and salmon, mullet, snapper and gummy sharks come out of the same gutters. The lagoon behind the dunes is a different fishery again, best known for the Coorong mullet. Black bream in the Coorong and the Lakes are closed from 1 August to 31 January.

Yes, the northern run is. To protect the hooded plover, the ocean beach track north of Tea Tree Crossing is closed to vehicles from 24 October to 24 December every year, and that closure applies to the beach from Tea Tree Crossing to the Murray Mouth. 42 Mile Crossing sits south of Tea Tree and is not closed, so the campground, the dune walk and the beach in front of it stay available through those two months.

Not at the moment. Pipis are closed statewide from 1 June to 31 October, and since 16 April 2026 all bivalve molluscs taken recreationally in South Australia are bait only and not for eating. Recreational take is also prohibited on the Younghusband Peninsula between the Murray Mouth and 28 Mile Crossing, which is a commercial zone.