Fingal Head

Postcode: 2487

Fingal Head, often just called Fingal, is a town and headland in Australia on the New South Wales far north coast in Tweed Shire Council, near the border with Queensland and the Gold Coast.

The Tweed River runs northwards close to the coast for about 6km before reaching its mouth at Point Danger. This forms a spit about 500-800 metres wide and Fingal is about half way along it. The part past Fingal is called Letitia Spit.

Directly offshore, about 750 metres from the headland, is Cook Island, a small rocky uninhabited island. The stretch of water in between is called the Giants Causeway. The waters around Cook Island were made a marine reserve in 1998 (fishing prohibited).

The local aboriginal people were the Minjungbal, but the impact of white settlement meant they were almost wiped out by 1900.

Since 1996 Fingal has hosted an annual surfing competition for indigenous surfers. The first year attracted 90 surfers from across Australia.

In 1999, SBS television commissioned a documentary called Surfing the Healing Wave about that competition, as part of an Unfinished Business - Reconciling the Nation series.

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