Tea Tree Crossing is a summer-dry weather crossing. It begins off a section of the old highway 6 km south of Salt Creek, and crosses a lake bed, which is usually flooded in winter. It then runs through an active dune sheet for 1 km before reaching a hard packed 200 m wide deflation basin behind the beach (Fig. 4.28). This is the last crossing. North of here and up to Murray Mouth the 100 km long Coorong Lagoon separates the beaches and dunes from the highway. The beach which begins with the coarse shell and wide high energy surf zone gradually changes over the first few kilometres north of the crossing into a finer sand, flatter firmer beach, which continues on this way to the Murray Mouth. The beach faces southwest directly into the persistent high southwest swell with waves averaging over 2 m, and breaking over 500 m out to sea, across a wide double bar surf zone. Massive dunes systems averaging 1.5 km wide back the beach (Fig. 4.29). During periods of lower waves well developed rips spaced approximately 500 m, through ranging in spacing from 300 to 900 m dominate the inner surf zone. The beach usually narrows in width in lee of the rips (called the rip embayment) and may be scarped. read more

Beach Length: 100km