‘Send nudes’: Locals furious as tourists leave rude messages on picturesque beach

Commenters blame ‘ignorant, self-indulgent visitors’

Granite Bay is regularly 'defaced' (Getty Images)

Locals are sick of having to clean up after tourists following a spate of rude messages left on a pretty beach in eastern Australia.

Granite Bay in Noosa National Park, Queensland, has seen a flurry of words “written” in large letters using the beach’s granite pebbles, including the message “Send nudes” and the outline of a penis.

Pictures posted on social media show that visitors have also written their names and other words, such as “vegan” and “Poland”, until the sand is almost covered.

Dennis Massoud, a local resident who works for Tourism Noosa, shared the pictures on Facebook on 24 November, alongside a close-up of a sign about visiting the area, which reads: “Imagine how quickly this beautiful national park would be destroyed if people didn’t look after the park.

“Make your visit low impact and leave no trace.”

Mr Massoud organised a clean-up of the beach, later sharing pictures of unblemished sand with the words: “There were 10 of us putting the rocks back to their Natural Zone. Still a lot more work to go.”

He claimed the main culprits behind the messages are European backpackers.

Social media users called the practice “disgusting” and said the words were an “eyesore”.

One commenter wrote: “It is no different to graffiti. Someone has to clean it up. Ignorant self-indulgent visitors – the same who leave cigarette butts throughout the national park.”

Another wrote: “There is nothing more ugly than seeing all that rock graffiti strewn across the pristine Granite Bay. Your perseverance will win out to raise people’s awareness that nature needs to be left alone.”

It’s not the first time that tourists have caused outrage by moving rocks around.

In 2018, The Independent reported that visitors to the remote Scottish Highlands were increasing the area’s vulnerability to erosion by building rock formations in an attempt to capture the perfect photograph.

Conservationists and local people on the isles of Skye, Iona and Orkney raised concerns about the growing trend among tourists to create tall, stacked pyramids of stones for photographic and “artistic” purposes.

While the formations may look pretty, removing the rocks from stone walls runs the risk of accelerating erosion and disturbing wildlife habitats.