Coffin Bay National Park; another magic SA destination

After spending over a week in the Lincoln National Park, we were super excited to head to Coffin Bay National park and explore it, to see how the two compared. On our way, we spent an incredible night at Mikkira Station with the Koalas, and then rolled into Coffin Bay.

Golden Islands at Coffin Bay National Park — Coffin Bay National Park is sensational with good weather

With National Park passes already taken care of, we rolled through the entry station and into Coffin Bay National Park, onto our first destination; Yangie Bay.

2WD accessible camping in Coffin Bay National Park — Yangie Bay Campsite is the most common, and its OK, but we didn’t rave about it

Where is Coffin Bay National Park?

Coffin Bay National Park is a short drive out of Coffin Bay itself. You can easily come in for supplies if needed (depending on where you are staying), but it’s a short, and easy drive.

Coffin Bay is a beautiful town — Coffin Bay is directly West of Port Lincoln

Coffin Bay National Park Camping

There’s a heap of places you can camp at Coffin Bay National Park. The biggest camp grounds, and most popular is Yangie Bay, and then you have the below:

Big Yangie

This is a 4WD accessible only camp site, a short drive from Yangie Bay. We didn’t actually call in here, but drove past it a number of times.

Black Springs

Black Springs campground is about a 40 – 60 minute 4WD Track away from Yangie Bay, along a mainly rocky and sandy track. The camp ground itself has a drop toilet, with some sites that have views over a great bay.

The camp sites are generally quite small, and we much preferred Black Springs Overflow

Black Springs Camp site 7 — A typical (but slightly larger) site at Black Springs (not the overflow)

Black Springs Overflow

After a drive out from Yangie Bay, we decided to drag our hybrid camper out to Black Springs Overflow, and we really fell in love. The camp sites are bigger, its quieter, the views are better and in many of the places its a few steps down the rocks and you are on the beach, or in the shallows.

Camping at Black Springs Overflow — We really loved our time at Black Springs Overflow

Morgans landing

If you continue heading out in Coffin Bay National Park by 4WD, you’ll get to Seven Mile Beach, and then beyond this is Morgans Landing. There are only a handful of camp sites, with one that has direct beach access and that looks pretty nice.

I’ll be honest and say the rest didn’t really appeal to us at all, not that we’d have been able to get our Reconn R2 out there easily anyway.

Camp site 1 at Morgans Landing — Camp site 1 is the pick of the bunch at Morgan’s Landing

Morgans Landing Camp sites — The other sites don’t have direct beach access and weren’t that appealing to us

Pool Campground – Point Sir Isaac

If you make the journey right to the end of the 4WD tracks, you’ll arrive at Point Sir Isaac. This has great reviews, and looks pretty nice, but we didn’t make it all the way out due to a lack of time, and a lack of interest from our kids who’d already spent a lot of time in the 4WD. It’s no small drive to get out here.

We did hear from a couple who’d towed a small, light weight Swag camper out there with a 79 series, so its possible, but most people will just have a 4WD and tents here.

Sensation Beach Campsite

On the southern side of Coffin Bay National Park lies Sensation Beach, which is accessed by heading a different direction to Morgans Landing and Point Sir Isaac. Again, we didn’t make it here, but it looks like a decent place especially if you got nice wind!

4WD tracks in Coffin Bay National Park

There’s more 4WD tracks in Coffin Bay National Park than you can poke a stick at, and most of them start just beyond Yangie Bay. You need to watch the tides carefully when going though, as on a big high tide the salt water comes in over the flats and fills up a number of hollows, which results in you driving through big depths of salt water (not good at all!).

Salt water on the way into Coffin Bay National Park — If there’s been a big tide recently (or in the future) expect to have lots of salt water everywhere

You need to let your tyres down, but most of the driving is actually on rocky sections, so don’t go too low.

It takes about 45 minutes to an hour to get to Black Springs, and then about another hour to get to Morgans Landing, and another hour to get right to the top.

Black Springs track out — Most of the driving is rocky, but there are a couple of soft, sandy sections

Black Springs track is rough — Some of the track is quite rough, with a lot of it being rocky

You can head West and get to a couple of other places, but expect to spend a full day if you want to get right to the top and back.

Driving on the beach to Morgan's Landing — The beach to Morgans Landing is beautiful

Rubber mats at Coffin Bay — There are some rubber mats in places to help where the hills exist

On the other side, you can access a couple of beaches with your 4WD, and you can even end up right near Golden Islands.

Golden Island in Coffin Bay National Park — If you get good weather, Golden Island is the ultimate destination in Coffin Bay National Park

Everything up to Yangie Bay is bitumen, which means accessing a fair chunk of the park is easy and suitable for everyone.

Coffin Bay National Park vs Lincoln National Park

Coffin Bay National Park is beautiful, and has some spectacular places. Golden Island absolutely blew my mind (we got incredible weather though), and is some of the best coastline I’ve ever seen.

Golden Island is a beautiful place — I was shocked at how spectacular the Golden Island area is

I didn’t rate Yangie Bay, but Black Springs overflow was great, and Seven Mile Beach is stunning. Morgans landing didn’t appear to be anything special, and we didn’t go further than this.

You need a 4WD to explore the main chunk of Coffin Bay, and towing a heavy trailer any further than Black Springs is not a good idea.

Overall, we enjoyed Coffin Bay National Park, but I thought Lincoln National Park was probably better. It’s closer together, has more variety, Memory Cove is unreal and if I had to choose between the two, we’d go back to Lincoln National Park.

That said, Coffin Bay National Park is beautiful, and if you can get to a few of the great places with good weather its 100% worth a visit. Have you been to Coffin Bay National Park? What did you think of it?