Sorry, Australia; There's No Such Thing As The Maldives In Our Own Backyard

"Last time we checked there were no overwater villas on the NSW south coast."

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Sorry, Australia; There's No Such Thing As The Maldives In Our Own Backyard

Image: Shoalhaven Tourism

We’re as guilty as anyone at comparing Australia’s nooks and crannies to proselytised overseas equivalents.

But as much as The Great Ocean Road does have some beaches that look like Polignano a Mare and as much as certain Port Stephens secrets look a bit like Crete, you have to draw the line somewhere.

That line for us? Bendalong Point is not the Maldives.

Despite the headlines popping off about it everywhere from TikTok to the tabloids (see: A taste of the Maldives in your own backyard: How you can swim with STINGRAYS in crystal clear water just three hours’ drive from an Aussie city) we’re here to say the Tasman is quite different from the Indian Ocean.

To be fair to those talking Bendalong up, it is beautiful.

Jerome Webzanet, whose photo can be seen below, visited Bendalong in February. Jerome told us Bendalong was “a little piece of heaven on earth” though he couldn’t compare it to the Maldives having never been.

Also, to be fair to the travel bloggers, as far as we’ve seen, none say Bendalong is the Maldives. Some say it makes them feel like they are in the Maldives.

As @lolahubner put it: “The South Coast has got me feeling like I’m in the Maldives.” A sentiment we are more than sympathetic to, having recently ourselves compared South Australia to, of all places, Iceland…

Some just make the place look cool, without making any comparisons at all. Maybe, after our disastrous attempts to recreate ‘travel influencer’ waterfall photos earlier this year, we’re just jealous?

Who knows? In any case, to assuage our guilty conscience (we too have even likened certain Australian locations to the Maldives this year), we’d like to clear a few things up.

First: the Maldives has an average water temperature of 28°C to 30°C per year. In Bendalong, the water temperature is between 17°C and 25°C.

Second: there are no caravan parks (as far as we can tell) in the Maldives. Or kangaroos.

Third: last time we checked, there were no overwater villas on the NSW south coast.

The only thing that is (vaguely) similar is that both regions have good waves.

We’ll hang 10 to that.

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