If the worst happened at your local beach tomorrow morning, would you know where the nearest shark bite kit is? Most people wouldn’t — and yet there are now two separate networks of publicly accessible kits along the NSW coast, quietly putting life-saving bleeding control equipment within reach of hundreds of Australian beaches. One is a grassroots initiative born right here on the Mid North Coast. The other is a state-wide rollout by Surf Life Saving NSW. Between them, the coverage is genuinely impressive — you just need to know where to look. This post shows you exactly that.
If you’ve been following along, you’ll know we’ve covered what’s inside a shark bite kit — the tourniquet, the compression bandages, the permanent marker that seems oddly specific until you learn why it’s there. And in our coverage of the Coogee shark attack, we saw exactly why this equipment matters: fast bleeding control in those first few minutes is often the difference between a survivor and a statistic. Knowing where the kits are is the logical next step.
The Community Shark Bite Kits (Bite Aid)
The Community Shark Bite Kits story starts uncomfortably close to home. After his friend Kai McKenzie lost a leg to a shark at North Shore Beach, Port Macquarie, in July 2024 — surviving thanks to a retired police officer who improvised a tourniquet from a dog leash — Bonny Hills surfer Danny Schouten decided that “hope someone with trauma training happens to be walking their dog” wasn’t much of an emergency plan.
So he built a better one.
The result is Community Shark Bite Kits, also known as Bite Aid. By mid-2026, close to 250 kits had been installed across New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia — a remarkable effort for a project that started with a handful of community-funded boxes around Port Macquarie-Hastings. The NSW Government has since backed the initiative, funding 150 kits for beaches outside the metro areas, and councils have joined in too — Randwick City Council partnered with Surfing NSW to install after-hours kits at Coogee and Maroubra, the very stretch of coastline from our Coogee article.
Where the community kits are installed
You’ll find Community Shark Bite Kits at all the main surf locations along the coast — from busy town beaches through to popular breaks and more isolated stretches. Once you know what you’re looking for, you’ll start spotting them everywhere:
- Attached to a beach walkway post at beach access points
- Mounted on a free-standing post (often towards the rear of the beach)
- Attached to a SLSNSW Emergency Response Beacon
- Inside or alongside an Emergency Boxs, which often also contains a rescue tube — a buoyant flotation device used to keep someone afloat during a rescue
The kits are distinctively marked and deliberately placed where ocean users can reach them fast — because in a severe bleed, the difference between a kit thirty seconds away and one five minutes away is not a rounding error.
On the Mid North Coast, kits have been rolled out at beaches right across the Port Macquarie-Hastings region — the same coastline where the whole project began.
The live kit location map
The best way to find your nearest Community Shark Bite Kit is the official Bite Aid location map on Google Maps. Every installed kit is pinned, and the map is updated as new kits go in.
Our suggestion: open it now, find the pins near the beaches you actually use, and make a mental note. It takes ninety seconds. It’s the cheapest insurance policy you’ll ever take out.
You can also follow Bite Aid – Community SBK on Instagram for new installations, or to report a damaged kit — and if your favourite local break doesn’t have one yet, that’s the place to raise your hand.
The SLSNSW Surf Club Shark Bite Trauma Kits
The second network is newer and considerably easier to find — because the boxes are bolted to buildings you already know.
In 2026, Surf Life Saving NSW announced that 129 publicly accessible Shark Bite Trauma Kits would be installed at every surf club in the state, fixed to the external wall of each clubhouse. That’s the entire NSW coastline, from the Queensland border to the Victorian one, including every surf club here on the Mid North Coast.
The logic is simple and rather elegant. Surf clubs are already the most recognisable buildings on any beach. Most already have a publicly accessible defibrillator mounted outside. Now the trauma kit sits alongside it — so in an emergency, one person calls Triple Zero while another runs to the surf club, grabs both the defib and the trauma kit, and starts first aid before emergency services arrive.
Critically, these kits are designed for moments when no lifesaver or lifeguard is on duty — early mornings, weekdays, and the long off-season when patrols wind down but the surfers, rather stubbornly, do not. Each kit carries a QR code that links to guided instructions for the wound wraps and tourniquet inside, so no formal medical training is needed to use one.
How to find your nearest surf club kit
This one’s easy. If you can find a surf club, you can find a kit.
Wherever you are on the NSW coast, the Surf Life Saving NSW club directory lists every club in the state. Look up the clubs nearest to where you swim, surf or fish, and next time you’re there, walk past the external wall and clock exactly where the kit is mounted. SLSNSW encourages the public to familiarise themselves with the kits — just leave the contents untouched unless there’s a genuine emergency, so everything’s intact when it counts.
Locally, that means clubs at Port Macquarie, Wauchope-Bonny Hills, Camden Haven, Taree Old Bar, Forster and beyond all carry publicly accessible kits. If you’re a Mid North Coast local, your nearest one is probably closer than your nearest coffee.
Community Kits vs Surf Club Kits: What’s the Difference?
Both do the same core job — controlling catastrophic bleeding until paramedics arrive — but they complement each other:
- Community Shark Bite Kits (Bite Aid) are installed at main surf locations along the coast — mounted on walkway posts, free-standing posts, Emergency Response Beacons and Emergency Boxes — covering everywhere from town beaches to isolated breaks with no surf club in sight. Find them via the live Google Maps list.
- SLSNSW Shark Bite Trauma Kits cover every surf club beach in NSW, mounted on the clubhouse wall next to the defibrillator, available 24/7 whether or not patrols are running. Find them via the SLSNSW club directory.
Between the two networks, the coverage along the NSW coast is now genuinely impressive. But a kit on a post is only half the equation.
Knowing Where the Kit Is Only Gets You Halfway
Here’s the uncomfortable truth we keep circling back to: the equipment doesn’t save anyone. The person holding it does.
The kits are deliberately designed to be usable by anyone — clear instructions, simple contents, a QR code for guidance. But in a real emergency, with adrenaline flooding your system and someone bleeding heavily on the sand, “reading the instructions calmly” is a bigger ask than it sounds. Every story of a shark bite survival — including the one that inspired this entire movement, and the Coogee incident we covered recently — comes down to a bystander who acted fast and got the basics right.
That’s a trained response. And it’s trainable.
Our HLTAID011 Provide First Aid course in Port Macquarie covers severe bleeding control — pressure, wound packing and tourniquet application — alongside CPR and the full suite of emergency response skills. It’s hands-on, it’s practical, and thanks to our blended format, the in-person session takes just two hours. You’ll walk out with a same-day certificate and, more importantly, the confidence to be the person who steps forward rather than the one frantically Googling.
If you spend any real time on the coast — surfer, swimmer, angler, parent of beach-mad kids — this is the skill set that backs up every kit on this page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I find a map of shark bite kit locations?
The official Community Shark Bite Kit locations are pinned on a public Google Maps list maintained by Bite Aid, covering close to 250 kits across NSW, QLD, SA and WA. For surf club kits, every SLSNSW club carries one — use the SLSNSW club directory to find your nearest club.
What do shark bite kits look like, and where are they mounted?
Community Shark Bite Kits are distinctively marked boxes mounted at beach access points and car parks — on walkway posts, free-standing posts, SLSNSW Emergency Response Beacons, or within Emergency Boxes that often also hold a rescue tube. SLSNSW Shark Bite Trauma Kits are fixed to the external wall of every NSW surf club, usually near the public defibrillator.
Do I need training to use a shark bite kit?
No formal qualification is required — the kits include step-by-step instructions and a QR code with guidance. That said, people who’ve completed a first aid course covering bleeding control act faster and more confidently under pressure, which is exactly when it matters.
Where are shark bite kits located on the Mid North Coast?
Community Shark Bite Kits are installed at main surf locations across the Port Macquarie-Hastings region, where the initiative began, and every SLSNSW surf club on the Mid North Coast — including Port Macquarie, Camden Haven, Taree Old Bar and Forster — has a publicly accessible Shark Bite Trauma Kit mounted on its external wall.
Can I buy a shark bite kit for myself?
Yes. Many surfers and anglers keep one in the car or beach bag, particularly if they frequent remote breaks. Contact Bite Aid via Instagram for details on personal kits and supporting new installations.
Be Ready Before You Need to Be
Take two minutes today: open the map, find your local kits, and remember where they are. Then take the next step and make sure you’d know what to do once the box is open.
Enrol in a first aid course and learn hands-on bleeding control, or view our upcoming course dates in Port Macquarie and Taree.
Running a workplace or community group on the Mid North Coast? We deliver group first aid training tailored to your team — get in touch today and we can discuss your options.
