While we were staying at Kiama, on the South Coast of New South Wales, we stopped by Cathedral Rocks to see what all the fuss was about.

Located around 4km north of Kiama, you will find Cathedral Rocks, an awesome rugged coastal rock formation. After doing plenty of research, we decided on a very early start and get there for sunrise.

Getting to Cathedral Rocks

Cathedral Rocks is about a 1.5-hour drive south of Sydney or just 10 minutes north of Kiama village. Getting to Cathedral Rocks is really easy! Just pop North Kiama Drive into Google Maps and you will find the parking located at the northern end, in front of the beach (opposite Moona Avenue).

From the parking lot, just head down on to the beach and head towards your right.

You will need to navigate over some rocks and around the corner and no doubt you will see many other photographers there already. It is much easier (and safer) to get there on low tide so if you can time it, even better.

Once you’re there, you will find a little cave (which will no doubt already have some photographers there), and it makes for some cool photos!

What to bring with you

Try to remember to wear comfortable shoes, after all, you will be climbing over rocks to get there so something with a bit of grip would be ideal as the rocks can get slippery. Depending on how keen a photographer you are, you will want to bring your tripod, filters and lenses etc.

Best time to photograph Cathedral Rocks

This was a big one for us.  All seascape locations on the east coast of Australia are best photographed at sunrise. Unfortunately, the morning we arrived for sunset there was quite a bit of low cloud which meant we didn’t get the fiery sunrise we were hoping for.  Regardless, it was still breathtaking and I could have spent hours there… actually, we did spend hours there!!

It is worth taking the tide and swells into consideration when capturing Cathedral Rocks. If you’re really wanting to shoot from inside the cave, you need to be there at low tide. The swell was pretty impressive when we were there so needless to say, we got a bit wet from the waves crashing up against the rocks.

Take a look at our short video on our trip to Cathedral Rocks.

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Alternative accommodation

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Here are a few more of our snaps of the day.

“Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you traveled.” – Mohammed