Honeymoon Bay and Target Beach: some of the best beaches in Jervis Bay

The crescent of golden sand known as Honeymoon Bay is one of the most popular beaches in Jervis Bay and it’s easy to see why. You can almost drive right up to it, it’s gorgeous, and the water is as still as millpond. Whether you’re looking to swim, paddle board, or simply laze around, it’s perfect.

However, the vast majority of visitors stop at Honeymoon Bay never realising how great the beaches are beyond.

In this guide we’re sharing details of a circular walk from Honeymoon Bay, which takes in three more beaches, one of which quickly made it onto our best beaches in NSW list!

The Honeymoon Bay Circular Walk

The stats

Distance: 8.7km circuit (including all side trails)
Elevation gain: 170m
Difficulty: Easy
Trailhead: Honeymoon Bay Car Park, Beecroft Peninsula

Summary: The route between all the beaches along this walk is on a well maintained track. However, if you want to visit Little Target Beach you’ll need to rock hop and it’s best done within a few hours either side of low tide.

The walk is on fire trail for the majority of the way, but it’s generally a bushy, pretty one with a decent amount of shade. There are some climbs and descents, but no long steep sections and plenty of flat track inbetween.

Note that this walk is located on the Beecroft Weapons Range and is not open every day. As a general rule you can visit Friday to Sunday and during the school holidays, but for updates check their facebook account.

Starting the trail: to Honeymoon Bay

The closest car park to the beach is for campers only, so if you’re not camping, you’ll need to park 250m away at the car park you can find here on Google maps (there’s a signpost indicating you can go no further unless camping, so you can’t go wrong).

From the car park you’ll follow the gravel path beside the road, reaching the campsite 200m later. There’s usually lots of roos grazing or lazing around on the grass here.

A sign on the right hand side indicates beach access, which is down the path, 50m away.

Honeymoon Bay

Honeymoon Bay is the picture perfect crescent of golden sand you’ve seen in all the pictures. The beach is backed by bushland and the bay is as clear and calm as it gets.

It’s great for swimming, paddle boarding and just lazing around in the shallow water, and as such it’s a popular spot.

It’s popularity is confounded by the fact that you can only visit when the weapons range is not in operation, generally Friday to Sunday and during the school holidays.

The Beecroft Weapons Range is brilliant at updating their facebook account with the dates they’re open, so it’s always worth checking it before making the journey out here.

This means the quietest time to visit is generally on a Friday outside the school holidays.

But even if it is busy, it’s still a beautiful spot, just not quiet and secluded.

Continuing to Target Beach

It’s worth noting if you’re not visiting Honeymoon Bay you can drive to the trailhead for Target Beach and skip this next section on the road. Assuming you are visiting Honeymoon Bay you cross the beach and then walk up the stairs at the far end and onto the road.

You’ll pass by the campsite and come to a junction 150m later. The junction is signposted and you head straight/slightly left for Target Beach.

You’ll reach the car park and trailhead 400m later, or 850m from the car park for Honeymoon Bay.

Although this next section of track is predominantly on fire trail, it is lovely and bushy, so it’s still very pretty. The first 700m is flat, followed by a short gentle uphill before the path flattens again.

At the 1.9km mark, or just under a kilometre from the Target Beach car park, you’ll reach a junction and follow the signpost, heading gently downhill.

After 400m or 2.3km into the walk you’ll reach the end of the fire trail and head left for Target Beach. After 100m you’ll reach a small grassy clearing which has some picnic benches and you’ll head right, down the narrow sandy path to the beach.

After 50m there are a few steepish wooden steps and then the path will flatten before reaching the beach 50m later, 2.5km from the car park for Honeymoon Bay.

Target Beach

I didn’t have any expectations for Target Beach, I’d never seen a picture or really heard anything about it, so I was blown away when we got there!

It’s absolutely glorious and completely empty, even when we visited on a hot sunny weekend in the October school holidays. I couldn’t believe it!

The beach is large, with clear water backed by forested hills and looking out to a distant headland. It’s really beautiful, photos don’t do it justice!

It is a little wavy, so though the water looked really inviting, it’s not as good for swimming, or at least not for me as I prefer it to be very calm!

Going off track to Little Target Beach

If you want to visit Little Target Beach you’ll need to leave the maintained trail behind and walk for approximately 350m each way off track.

This is best done at low tide, or close to, as the latter part of the walk crosses rock platforms which would become submerged at higher tides.

To find the ‘track’ head left, all the way across to the eastern end of the beach, which is around 300m from where you left the walking track. You then need to climb up onto the rock platform.

There is a tiny little creek crossing here, you’ll need to use the rocks as stepping stones, or jump across, but watch for any wet rock which is really slippery.

Once you’re up on the rock platform it’s smooth sailing for the next 100m, it’s flat, as well as being nice and grippy.

At this point you round the corner and it gets a bit bushy and overgrown. There are a few worn areas amongst the scrub, I found the middle ‘path’ the easiest.

It’s around 100m in this overgrown bit before you reach a point where you need to climb down the rock and rock hop the final 150m to the beach.

Roughly 50m of this distance is rock hopping and 100m is on rock platform. Be very careful on the rock hopping section as many of these rocks move and it would be all too easy to roll an ankle.

The rock platform is low to the sea, unlike the one you crossed directly from Target Beach, which is why you need to go close to low tide.

You’ll reach Little Target Beach just over 3.1km into the walk from the Honeymoon Bay car park, or just under 2.2km from the Target Beach car park.

Little Target Beach

Little Target Beach is small, but pretty and has that off the beaten track feel as you can’t get there from the main walking track. There are some small rock walls behind the beach and at low tide a decent size stretch of sand to enjoy.

However, it is wavy like Target Beach, so again, it’s not great for swimming. The seclusion of the cove and its small size give it a wild vibe which I really enjoyed.

Based on the map it looked like you could rock hop around to an even more remote cove, but the swell was not in our favour and we decided not to risk it.

It would be best to go with low swell and also plenty of time to get back round to Target Beach before the tide comes in.

Continuing to Silica Cove

If coming from Little Target Beach you have 900m to walk back across the beach and to the junction with Silica Cove, it would be less than half that if you decided to stop at Target Beach only.

At the junction you’ll head left and Silica Cove is signposted.

The next 300m are all noticeably uphill before the track descends and then flattens. You’ll come to another junction and head left, again it’s signposted, so no chance of losing your way on this walk.

You’ll now walk on a narrow path which is a mix of dirt track and then some boardwalk.

It’s all downhill and there are views out to the ocean, we were lucky enough to see two whales from here, albeit at a bit of a distance!

After a 400m descent on a good path you’ll reach Silica Cove, this is 5km into the walk assuming you visited Little Target Beach and walked from Honeymoon Bay car park.

Silica Cove

The 100m long stretch of sand is a dazzling white and the water is relatively calm. We were visiting close to sunset, but you could see the water would be almost turquoise in the sunshine.

If you are lucky you might spot some of the resident wildlife.

We were thrilled to see a pod of dolphins, a playful seal and a whale from here, sadly none of which we caught on camera! It was the perfect end to another fantastic walk in Jervis Bay.

Before you head back up the narrow path to the junction, you can walk for 80m across the rocks at the northern end of the beach to see the shipwreck of St. Martin de Porres, which sank at Christmas in 1994 after a pleasure sailing went wrong.

We were here a couple of hours after low tide and the wreck was fully exposed, but I imagine it may not be as easily accessible on a higher tide.

Completing the circuit

From Silica Cove you head back up the track to the junction and head left on the fire trail. There’s a brief bit of uphill before it flattens and then undulates gently until you get to the car park, which is just over 1.8km from the junction, or just under a kilometre if you are returning to the Target Beach car park.

Getting to the car park for Honeymoon Bay

To reach the Honeymoon Bay, or Target Beach car parks you have to drive through and sign in at the security checkpoint for the Beecroft Weapons Range. However, entry to the area is free of charge and you’ll be given a map with the local points of interest on arrival.

There are some sections of gravel road on route to the car parks, but it’s in excellent condition and suitable for any vehicle at time of writing.

The Honeymoon Bay car park is just under 47km and a 40 minute drive from Huskisson, 8km and a 12 minute drive from Currarong and 200km and a 2 hour 50 minute drive from Sydney.