As a real and imagined place, the beach conjures a range of associations deeply embedded in the Australian psyche. It is treasured family holidays, sought-after real estate, a glorious natural phenomenon, the embodiment of summer fun. For visitors to our shores, a beach visit is often at the top of their must-do list, with the beach’s enduring image as a comforting, commodified space used as a drawcard in our earliest tourism films (Bonelli 17) and continuing to be leveraged today. Citing Foucault, Sean Redmond believes the beach can also be viewed as a heterotopia (718); a ‘free’ space that many of us have been able to enjoy despite differences in economic status. Elizabeth Ellison and Donna Lee Brien sum it up thus: “the beach – as a site, an image and an idea – continues to play a significant role in Australian culture ... able to communicate the idea of Australia in national and international imaginations” (1-2).