Ranked for photographers who shoot small: sites recording seadragons, seahorses, pygmy pipehorses, nudibranchs, frogfish and cephalopods, weighted toward the sheltered piers and shore reefs where you can spend an hour on one pylon.
Updated daily from the directory. 20 sites listed.
1. Cocos (Keeling) Islands · External Territory
Cannons
Old cannons among Porites corals on sand, with garden eels and gobies – and a chance of dugong, dolphins and mantas.
2. Christmas Island · External Territory
The Sandpatch
A dense garden eel colony and easy shallow reef right off the beach; the island's go-to training and night dive.
3. Cocos (Keeling) Islands · External Territory
Cabbage Patch
A hillside of golden cabbage coral 6–20 m across, glowing in sunlight and swarming with thousands of anthias and chromis; garden eels and sleeping whitetips on the sand.
4. Coral Sea · External Territory
Admiralty (Osprey Reef)
A coral village of huge bommies with a centuries-old anchor in a swim-through, flashlight fish at night and a sheer wall below.
5. Coral Sea · External Territory
Around the Bend (Osprey Reef)
Osprey's most challenging drift, where current brings barracuda, hunting predators and mantas to a cleaning station.
6. Christmas Island · External Territory
Eidsvold Wreck
WWII history in 5–18 m: the broken-up Norwegian freighter Eidsvold, torpedoed in Flying Fish Cove in 1942, now overgrown with hard coral.
7. Coral Sea · External Territory
False Entrance (Osprey Reef)
Spectacular bommies and blue-water swim-throughs in a blind gully, with schooling trevally and barracuda and dense grey reef shark aggregations.
8. Christmas Island · External Territory
Million Dollar Bommie
A solitary coral bommie rising from sand, with a dense garden eel colony and outstanding photography on the summit.
9. Coral Sea · External Territory
Nonki Bommie (Holmes Reef)
A split pinnacle with a canyon between its two fingers, draped in giant sea fans and soft corals.
10. Cocos (Keeling) Islands · External Territory
Pulu Maraya
Walk across the reef flat from Scout Park and drift around a palm-covered islet with clams, turtles, octopus and baby blacktips.
11. Cocos (Keeling) Islands · External Territory
Rose Wall
A continuous sheet of rose-coloured hard coral covering the wall from about 16 m to 35–40 m, right beside Cabbage Patch.
12. Christmas Island · External Territory
The Morgue
A macro-rich slope with giant Acropora and feather stars, ribbon eels and Spanish dancers – the island's favourite boat night dive.
13. Norfolk Island · External Territory
Fish Bowl (Nepean Island)
Pretty cave-riddled reef with eight Galapagos sharks and close to 40 m visibility on Nigel Marsh's dive.
14. Coral Sea · External Territory
The Abyss (Holmes Reef)
A dramatic drift along a 1,000 m wall cut with caves, gutters and canyons.
15. Norfolk Island · External Territory
The Crack (Nepean Island)
Drift along a bay of gutters and caves over a carpet of hard coral, with goldribbon cod, black cod and green turtles.
16. Coral Sea · External Territory
The Zoo (Bougainville Reef)
Bougainville's signature site, crowded with sharks, turtles and schooling reef fish in clear oceanic water.
17. Coral Sea · External Territory
Turbo (Holmes Reef)
A lagoon pinnacle that comes alive with pelagic fish when the tide runs.
18. Coral Sea · External Territory
Walmart (Bougainville Reef)
A 700 m wall covered in colourful invertebrates and swarming basslets.
19. Christmas Island · External Territory
Winifred Beach
A calm, sheltered west-coast reef of gullies and coral heads below a boat-access-only beach.
20. Coral Sea · External Territory
Anemone City (Flinders Reef)
Five lagoon pinnacles carpeted in purple anemones and clownfish.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the best macro diving in Australia?
The piers of the Mornington Peninsula (Blairgowrie, Rye, Portsea, Flinders), the Yorke Peninsula jetties (Edithburgh), Nelson Bay's Fly Point and the Pipeline, and Sydney's Kurnell, Bare Island and Clifton Gardens.
More rankings
- The 25 Deepest Dive Sites in Australia
- Australia's Most Remote Dive Sites
- The Longest Boat Rides to a Day Dive
- The Warmest Dive Sites in Australia
- The Coldest Dive Sites in Australia
- Australia's Clearest-Water Dive Sites
- The Most Biodiverse Dive Sites in Australia
- The Oldest Shipwrecks You Can Dive in Australia
- All rankings →