Halifax Park

Fly Point & Halifax Park, Port Stephens

By ScubaDownUnder Team · 2026-09-01

Walk down the steps at Fly Point, swim a couple of hundred metres north, and you drop into one of the richest patches of marine life on the entire New South Wales coast. The sponge gardens here, sheets and fans and fingers of sponge in reds, oranges and purples, are among the most extensive on the east coast, and the reserve that protects them has been counted as home to more than four hundred species of fish and two hundred kinds of nudibranch. Fly Point and its deeper neighbour Halifax Park form the heart of Port Stephens diving, a shore-dive macro wonderland a short walk from the Nelson Bay waterfront.

The Fly Point – Halifax Park Aquatic Reserve was declared in 1983, one of the earliest protected dive sites in the state, and in 2007 it was folded into the sanctuary zone of the Port Stephens – Great Lakes Marine Park. Decades of protection in a sheltered, nutrient-rich bay have produced a marine community of extraordinary density, and the site has become a cornerstone of Australian marine research, the home patch of some of the country's best-known underwater photographers and scientists. It sits right on the edge of Nelson Bay township, which means world-class diving with a car park and a coffee a few minutes away.

The reserve is really two contrasting shore dives. Fly Point is the gentle one, sloping through seagrass and sand to a ledge at around eight metres where the sponge gardens begin, then dropping to about twenty-four metres at the outer edge of the dive area. Most divers swim north from the entry, drop onto the sand at around seven metres and follow the ledges west, where the sponge growth and the schooling fish are thickest. Halifax Park, a little further around, is the deeper and more demanding sibling, reaching twenty-seven metres and more on a high tide, with navigation across sandy patches between bommies and the strongest current in the bay, since it sits closest to the open ocean. Fly Point suits almost everyone; Halifax Park is for experienced divers.

This is one of the great macro dives in Australia. The sponge gardens and kelp shelter a roll-call that reads like a critter checklist: more than two hundred species of nudibranch, seahorses and pipefish clinging to the sponge and weed, octopus, cuttlefish and squid hunting the ledges, and the pineapple fish that hide in the dark recesses by day. Eastern blue groper escort divers along the reef, wobbegongs lie folded under the ledges, and Port Jackson sharks move in over winter. Schools of bream, tarwhine, mullet and big silver drummer drift over the sponge, and each summer the East Australian Current delivers a wave of juvenile tropical fish, butterflyfish, damsels and lionfish among them, that linger until the water cools. With over four hundred fish species recorded, few shore dives anywhere reward a slow, torch-lit search like this one.

Fly Point and Halifax Park are shore dives, and the tide is the key to both. The clearest water and the easiest entry come on a high, incoming tide, when ocean water pushes into the bay and lifts visibility, and most divers plan their entry around it. Visibility is variable, often in the five to fifteen metre range and best on a clean incoming tide, dropping over the seagrass and after rain. Water temperature runs from around 16°C in winter to 23°C in summer, so a 5mm to 7mm wetsuit suits the season. Fly Point is sheltered and gentle, ideal for training, snorkelling and relaxed macro dives. Halifax Park carries real current and depth and is best left to divers comfortable with both. Boat traffic crosses the bay, so a surface marker or dive flag is sensible, and the reserve is no-take throughout.

The reserve is a photographer's site above all else, and the combination of dependable macro subjects, shallow depth at Fly Point and long bottom times makes it a place divers return to again and again. Night dives transform it, with the octopus and cuttlefish out hunting and the sponge gardens glowing under torchlight. The shallow, sheltered water at Fly Point also makes it one of the best training and snorkelling sites in the region, while Halifax Park gives more advanced divers somewhere to push a little deeper. Nelson Bay's other shore and boat dives sit within a few minutes, so a weekend here can string together a dozen different dives.

Fly Point and Halifax Park are proof that a sheltered bay, given decades of protection, can become something extraordinary. The sponge gardens, the nudibranchs, the seahorses and the blue groper are all here, a short walk from a coffee on the Nelson Bay foreshore, in water shallow enough for a beginner and rich enough to keep a marine biologist busy for a career. It is, quite simply, one of the best shore dives in the country.

## Site Access and Logistics

Fly Point and Halifax Park are shore dives on the edge of Nelson Bay, in Port Stephens, about two and a half hours north of Sydney. Both have dedicated entry points with parking nearby, and no boat is needed; dive shops in Nelson Bay provide air, gear and guided dives. Fly Point is reached from the reserve car park between the town and Little Beach, and the dive is straightforward from there.

Fly Point is well suited to Open Water divers, training and snorkelling, especially on a high tide when the entry is easiest and the water clearest. Halifax Park is a different proposition, reaching around twenty-seven metres with genuine current and trickier navigation, and is best dived by Advanced Open Water divers comfortable in current and deeper water. Both are best on the incoming tide. A surface marker or dive flag is sensible given boat traffic in the bay, a 5mm to 7mm wetsuit suits the water, and the whole reserve is a no-take sanctuary, so divers take only photographs.

Air, gear and guided dives are available from Nelson Bay operators including [Lets Go Adventures](https://letsgoadventures.com.au/dive-sites/fly-point).

## Sources

- Lets Go Adventures, Fly Point dive site: [https://letsgoadventures.com.au/dive-sites/fly-point](https://letsgoadventures.com.au/dive-sites/fly-point) - Lets Go Adventures, Halifax Park dive site: [https://letsgoadventures.com.au/dive-sites/halifax](https://letsgoadventures.com.au/dive-sites/halifax) - Indo Pacific Images, diving Nelson Bay: [https://indopacificimages.com/australia/diving-nelson-bay/](https://indopacificimages.com/australia/diving-nelson-bay/) - Divernet, diving Nelson Bay: [https://divernet.com/scuba-diving/diving-nelson-bay-exploring-australias-east-coast-marine-wonderland/](https://divernet.com/scuba-diving/diving-nelson-bay-exploring-australias-east-coast-marine-wonderland/) - Visit NSW, Fly Point – Halifax Park Aquatic Reserve: [https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/north-coast/port-stephens-area/nelson-bay/attractions/fly-point-halifax-park-aquatic-reserve](https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/north-coast/port-stephens-area/nelson-bay/attractions/fly-point-halifax-park-aquatic-reserve)