December 2012 (ROTM#48) Tallows Beach, NSW, Australia

Okay Australia, summer is here (in the southern hemisphere) and and many of us will be heading off to holiday at beaches just like this...Tallows Beach, just south of Byron Bay in far north New South Wales. And like many beaches on the south-east coast, it’s rip city.

There are at least 20 rips running along the beach that I can count before everything starts to get a bit fuzzy!  How do you spot them? Look for all those nice dark green gaps running out from the beach that look perfect for swimming.  I can’t see any red and yellow beach flags or lifeguards so I’d say your odds of getting caught in a rip are pretty high on a beach like this...unless you know what rips are, what they look like and how to react properly if you get caught in one.

The whole Byron region is a mecca for tourists, including backpackers, and this largely unpatrolled beach is easily accessible just like many others. Not surprisingly it’s not uncommon for rip drownings to occur and the region from Ballina to Byron is a known drowning ‘hot spot’. So enjoy, but be careful. Thanks to Jeremy Jacks for providing this photo which was taken from the lighthouse at Byron Bay, the easternmost point in Australia. To be honest, every time I go there, it looks exactly the same!

One rip after another….