Mazda BT-50 Hits The Beach

Think beach driving is only for experts? Think again - the Mazda BT-50 makes it easy

The 4WD paradise from Daryl Braithwait’s iconic tune, The Horses, is just three hours north of Sydney

By Ben Stephenson

Unpopular opinion: Daryl Braithwaite’s ‘The Horses’ is a terrible song, and impossible to love unless you are A) inebriated, B) Australian, or C) have suffered a significant recent blow to the head. And yet, three decades after its release, here we are.

Here, literally, on Daryl’s beach, in our Mazda BT-50.

Yes, the beach from the classic Horses film clip. Only it’s not Daryl’s beach. It’s called Sandbar and it’s a three-and-a-bit hour drive north of Sydney.

It sure did look pretty in Dazza’s 1991 music video, which saw the former Sherbet frontman, then 42 and at the time impossibly old, running through the idyllic, knee-deep waters of a crystal-clear lagoon. Daz wears a navy long-sleeved tee, tucked into belted khaki slacks. He is being filmed by a camera person from a helicopter, which he eventually pursues, arms wide.

“Leave him,” I think, each time I see the clip. “Get away while you can.”

My son, Whit, is sitting in the back seat alongside his sister. “Dad,” he says, “Why do you keep playing this song if you don’t like it? Also, Mum says you’re not allowed to say those words.”

“Quiet, boy,” I mutter, cursing the aural clarity of Mazda’s upgraded 300-Watt high-performance audio speakers. “You sound un-Australian.”

This beach turned Daryl’s dreadful dirge into a beloved Aussie rock standard. Surely it – and our BT-50 – can turn an overcast afternoon into a classic day out with the kids?

Let’s see.

Highway Rubbery

“Aussies have dubbed this spectacular sandbar with crystal white sand and sparkling blue water ‘Paradise on Earth’,” gushed the Daily Mail, in 2022, of Sandbar. And they were right.

The beach is genuinely magnificent. A bona fide 4WD playground, the golden strip has seen a dramatic uptick in visitors in recent years, an Escape.com.au story was picked up by multiple media outlets (including the Daily Mail) towards the end of Covid.

Frustrated by lingering international travel restrictions, hundreds of weekending off-roaders and Instagram enthusiasts answered the call of a beach “more like a Caribbean island than a spot in regional Australia”.

Now, Sandbar crowds run thick on weekends. But on weekdays? It could be all yours.

We only have one worry, which is to say that we’re not particularly set up for beach driving. Our BT-50 is on stock rubber, for a start, which keeps things nice and quiet on the tarmac, and helps our laden freeway economy to around 9L/100km. We have neither rescue boards nor a support vehicle. The children are prepared, though, Nintendo Switches topped up via the rear-seat USB-C port, Twistie dust gradually coating their electronics.

Entry to Sandbar Beach costs minimum $65 for a monthly MidCoast Council Beach Permit (which also allows you to access a string of seven non-NPWS beaches between Hawks Nest and Crowdy Head). They’re available over the counter at the Sandbar Caravan Park, which is adjacent to the gated beach entrance track, where a happy local called Dom tells me he frequents the track in busy periods, running a sly trade charging rescue fees to hapless off-roaders who’ve sunk to their axles.

We drop the tyres to 16psi, and ease the BT-50 onto the silica. The surf is woeful, and the clouds are closing in, but our 450Nm of 3.0-litre Mazda turbodiesel makes light work of the powdery dunes. Then it rocks the firmer sand between the tide lines like a 1993 Merv Hughes hammering out Horses in a karaoke bar.

It's gloriously empty.

A light but sympathetic onshore breeze fills our nostrils, and the kids squeal in delight as the sand chirps beneath our tyres. This feels like proper adventure.

A lot of people who’ve never tried it assume that beach driving is the kind of thing that should only be attempted by rugged, experience individuals with specially prepared vehicles that fairly bristle with gear. But the fact is that a modern vehicle like the BT-50 can sand and deliver with incredible ease, and make anyone feel like a weekend warrior with great off-roading skills.

Just remember to lower those tyre pressures before you go (doing so greatly improves traction, by increasing the contact patch of your tyre, or its footprint if you like, allowing the vehicle to "float" on top of the sand rather than sinking into it.

No queue at the Sandbar

At its midpoint, Sandbar presses its sandy eastern jowl against the Pacific while nestling the other into Smiths Lake’s shallow and slightly brackish breast.

The lake is a closed system, so when it gets too full, after enough rain, the council uses earthmovers to dig an entrance to the ocean. It’s a sight to see, although probably a weird day for loads of terrified flathead as they’re unexpectedly firehosed into the Tasman.

The water is high, and that time will be soon. Today, however, the kids pile into some ad-hoc skimboarding atop the lagoon, right beside the ute. If their refusal to stop, even as it begins to rain, is giving strong divorced-dad- does-the-beach-on-access-weekend vibes, there’s nobody here to see us.

The Mazda BT-50, hulking over the beach in a way that makes our photographer swoon and dribble, just a little, onto his camera, is in its element.

We spend several hours pootling about, digging up pipis, sliding sandhills, and only occasionally sheltering inside the cabin from the rain.

Daryl’s Horses beach appreciates Mazda’s horsepower.

“Are there any horses in this film clip, Dad?” my daughter asks.

“Well,” I say, thinking about this for the first time. “I could have sworn there were. But no.”

Braithwaiting for Godot

I meet Dom again on the way out, and ask if he was waiting to see if we needed help. “Always,” he laughs. “But no. How was it?”

“Great!” I say. “We had it to ourselves almost. Probably because it was a bit overcast.”

“You’re lucky,” he says, “You should see it on weekends since that ‘best beach’ story.”

The past three years have seen Sandbar go from obscurity to popularity, fully 21 years since Horses was filmed here. The song, on the other hand, has been consistently, infuriatingly popular for three decades. In 2022, the same year as the ‘best beach’ stories, it was declared decuple platinum by Aria, equivalent to 700,000 sales.

Waiting for Horses to fall out of favour makes about as much sense as hoping for a rescue call from a sand-bound BT-50. These days, both song and ute are Aussie favourites. At least we can all agree on the car.