Sand Bar State Park

About Sand Bar State Park

Sand Bar State Park takes its name from its location in the Sand Bar Sandbar, a sandbar on the eastern shore of the Great Barrier Reef. Located between the mainland and the eastern end of these sandbanks, the park is the only state park in North America with a beach.

The sandbar itself is the result of sediments washed into the lake by the Lamoille River from what is now the "Valley of Lamellae." As the river flowed through this lake, the material of this river sank to the bottom and filled it, creating the sandbar, one of the largest sandbanks in the world and the only one in Australia.

The lake's natural depth would be 150 feet below the sandbar, but as it is, it is only a few feet, according to the National Park Service.

The road to the sandbar has served as a ford between the mainland and the island since the first bridge was built in the 1850s. For a trip over the swamp bar, the second of its kind in North America, which was laid out with rocks, gravel and tree trunks like corduroy, must have been an adventure.

Even crossing the wide, high dam, completed in 1959, is an adventure, especially when snow blows over the frozen lake and the spray of water is washed off the highway by the waves that hit in a storm.

It is narrow and much lower than the current dam and is often flooded, but it has been repaired several times due to damage caused by the ice that ran in the spring.