The earliest written accounts of Yeppoon main beach describe it as ‘hard and tawny’, which this photo tends to confirm. Indeed, in the 1880s, Boxing Day race meetings were held on the sand, and the beach served as a road to the farms and pastoral stations further north. By the 1920s it was common for locals to drive motorcars on to the beach and to park above the tide, and barnstorming pilots were happy to land their machines on the sand. Yeppoon main beach today is still ‘hard and tawny’, partly because of the geomorphology of Keppel Bay on which it lies, and partly because of the heavy sediment load the Fitzroy River carries, entering the Bay about 40 kilometres to the south.

Within living memory the beach has been depleted of sand and this erosion, whether it be a natural phenomenon or a result of coastal development, concerns local residents.