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. 30 sites listed.
1. Sunshine Coast · QLD
La Balsa Park
Australia-class nudibranch muck dive: 700+ nudibranch species recorded in the Mooloolah River, in 1-6 m with easy stair entries from a riverside park.
2. Brisbane & Moreton Bay · QLD
Curtin Artificial Reef
The world's first diver-built artificial reef – 30+ wrecks, a Brisbane tram and resident giant Queensland groupers.
3. Gold Coast · QLD
Gold Coast Seaway – South Wall (Sand Bypass Pipe)
Australia's best city shore dive: giant groupers, rays and 400+ species along a breakwater and sand bypass pipe, with easy stair access.
4. Cairns · QLD
Tusa Canyons (Thetford Reef)
Canyon-like sand channels between tall coral bommies – one of Thetford's two signature sites.
5. Sunshine Coast · QLD
Ex-HMAS Brisbane
A 133 m destroyer scuttled off Mooloolaba in 2005, with cut-outs that make it one of the best penetration wrecks for recreational divers.
6. North Stradbroke Island · QLD
Flat Rock
A protected rock complex with four sites – coral gardens, turtle caves, a deep coral bowl and a winter grey nurse shark aggregation.
7. Ribbon Reefs & Lizard Island · QLD
Lighthouse Bommie
The classic dwarf minke whale site in June–July, and a pinnacle packed with fish, turtles and sea snakes all year.
8. Sunshine Coast · QLD
Mudjimba Island
The Sunshine Coast's all-weather site: a sheltered wall from 16 m to 5 m and coral gardens from 2 m, rich in macro life and ideal for training and snorkelling.
9. Cairns · QLD
Saxon Coral Gardens
A gentle coral slope to sand with garden eels, juvenile fish in the Fishbowl and occasional pygmy seahorses.
10. Gold Coast · QLD
Scottish Prince Wreck
An 1887 Glasgow barque whose whisky cargo was looted by locals, now wrapped in enormous schools of yellowtail scad in only 11 m.
11. North Stradbroke Island · QLD
Shag Rock
A sheltered rock with a swim-through cave linking both sides – Straddie's go-to dive for beginners, macro and night dives.
12. Cairns · QLD
Troppos (Norman Reef)
A sheltered bay full of nudibranchs, pipefish and razorfish, with a wall to deeper water on its northern edge.
13. North Stradbroke Island · QLD
Turtle Caves (Flat Rock)
Turtles resting in caves and under ledges at Flat Rock, with bull rays and mobulas cruising past.
14. Brisbane & Moreton Bay · QLD
Hendersons Rock
Granite pinnacle, kelp beds and a long gutter where grey nurse sharks gather in winter – one of Brisbane's best, least visited dives.
15. Cairns · QLD
Cathedral (Thetford Reef)
Cathedral-like gaps and swim-throughs between tall bommies on bright sand, with an outer gorgonian bommie to 30 m.
16. Gold Coast · QLD
Gold Coast Seaway – South-West Wall (Broadwater beach)
The easiest Seaway entry – a beach walk-in beside the car park onto a shallow rocky reef full of critters.
17. Heron Island & Capricorn Group · QLD
Heron Bommie
Heron's signature dive: six coral heads from 5 to 20 m forming a manta and eagle ray cleaning station, with dense fish life thanks to decades of green-zone protection.
18. Ribbon Reefs & Lizard Island · QLD
Pixie Pinnacle
A small pinnacle packed from top to bottom with fish and critters, including the flashing 'disco clam'.
19. Townsville & Magnetic Island · QLD
SS Yongala
Australia's greatest wreck dive by consensus: a 1911 steamer that has become a fish-covered reef in open water off Townsville.
20. Ribbon Reefs & Lizard Island · QLD
Steve's Bommie
A single pinnacle from 30 m to 3 m on the Ribbon Reefs covered in fish; often called the best single dive on the reef.
21. Port Douglas · QLD
Stonehenge (Agincourt Reef 3)
Coral pillars and arches forming swim-throughs, with some of the healthiest hard coral in the Port Douglas area.
22. North Stradbroke Island · QLD
The Bowl (Flat Rock)
A coral-lined basin that runs from a 10 m rim to 34 m, with turtles, groupers and seasonal sharks.
23. North Stradbroke Island · QLD
The Nursery (Flat Rock)
Shallow coral gardens on Flat Rock with turtles, nudibranchs and summer leopard sharks – the best introduction to Straddie diving.
24. Cairns · QLD
Tracey's Bommie (Flynn Reef)
A photogenic bommie on white sand with active cleaning stations, a resident Maori wrasse and one of the best night dives on Flynn.
25. Cairns · QLD
Twin Peaks (Saxon Reef)
Two coral peaks with a narrow swim-through and a wedged tree trunk, pygmy seahorses on the seagrass edges and morays at the mooring.
26. Gold Coast · QLD
Wonder Reef
Nine floating spiral sculptures rising to 8 m from 30 m – the world's first buoyant reef, opened in 2022.
27. Gold Coast · QLD
80 Foot Reef
A pink coffee-rock reef at 25 m, named by local pioneers and frequently visited by feeding dolphins.
28. Ribbon Reefs & Lizard Island · QLD
Coral Kingdom
Dense, colourful branching-coral gardens in the shallows with cuttlefish and bumphead parrotfish.
29. Ribbon Reefs & Lizard Island · QLD
Cracker Jack
Vertical walls draped in soft corals, black coral and elephant-ear sponges, with late-summer glassfish clouds and pygmy seahorses.
30. Cairns · QLD
Cucumber Alley (Pellowe Reef)
A shelf-edge wall with excellent visibility and big-fish action – trevally, barracuda, sharks and huge Napoleon wrasse.
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.
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