Palm Beach Dog Off-Leash Beach

This is the dog beach. Not a beach dogs are tolerated on, not a fenced corner with a sign — the whole long stretch of it belongs to them, and you'll see that within about thirty seconds of arriving.

Surf on one side and the flat creek water around the corner, which is the part that makes it work. A dog that won't face a breaking wave still gets to swim, a dog that loves the surf gets the surf, and you can walk between the two in a few minutes.

Dogs who've never met run at each other flat out and it almost always resolves itself, and the owners watch for a second and go back to their conversation.

The sand's wide and firm enough to walk a long way on without it becoming work, and most people keep going further than they planned. You can smell the creek before you see it and the dogs know where they're going long before you do.

Early morning is a different beach to mid-morning. Before eight it's regulars and mostly the same dogs, a lot of nodding and not much conversation, and by ten it's families and people down for the day. The creek end is calmer — fewer dogs, shallower water, people standing in it rather than swimming — and it's where you go on a day when you don't want to supervise anything. An hour here is mostly other people's dogs, and people greet dogs they know by name and owners they don't, and the same faces turn up at the same hours, which gives it the feel of a street more than a beach.

Late in the afternoon the light comes down the beach lengthways and everything goes gold for about half an hour, and nobody who comes here regularly photographs it any more. Sand comes home regardless of anybody's intentions.