Jurors in a high-profile Australian murder trial have been taken to the remote Queensland beach where the victim was found.

Toyah Cordingley was repeatedly stabbed with a sharp object and put in a shallow sandy grave with little or no hope of surviving, the jury has heard.

The 24-year-old's body was discovered by her father the following day on Wangetti Beach - a stretch of coastline between the tourist centres of Cairns and Port Douglas.

Rajwinder Singh, 41, denies murdering Ms. Cordingley on a Sunday afternoon in October 2018 in Far North Queensland.

The jury of 10 men and two women, plus three back-up jurors, attended the beach along with the judge and barristers on Monday morning local time, as the second week of the trial got under way.

In a nod to the tropical conditions and temperatures above 30C, Justice Lincoln Crowley wore a T-shirt, sport shorts, and trainers rather than a wig and robes. Both the lead prosecution and defence barristers opted for polo shirts, shorts, and baseball caps.

The jurors were led around 1.2km north up the sand to see where Ms. Cordingley's body was discovered.

Earlier, as they arrived by bus, four red and white cones marked where the victim's car had been parked.

The trip was intended to help the jurors become familiar with key locations in the case and no official evidence was given.

Last week, the Cairns Supreme Court heard that the day after Ms. Cordingley's body was discovered, Mr. Singh flew from Australia to India – leaving behind his wife, three children, and parents. He was not heard from until he was arrested four years later, the prosecution said.

It is alleged that Mr. Singh, who was working as a nurse in the town of Innisfail, south of Cairns, had a confrontation with Ms. Cordingley, whom prosecutor Nathan Crane described as a young woman, blonde and attractive.

The pharmacy worker was found wearing a bikini, with all her other clothes and most of her possessions missing. Those items were taken by the killer to avoid detection, prosecutors allege.

Her dog, Indie, which Ms. Cordingley had taken to the beach for a walk, was found tied up to a tree hidden in shrubland about 30 metres from the grave.

No murder weapon was ever recovered, and no eyewitnesses have been found.

But the prosecution says the crown's case – though circumstantial – was made up of evidence that pointed to Mr. Singh and eliminated others.

This will include evidence that DNA recovered from a stick at the scene was 3.8 billion times more likely to have come from Mr. Singh than a random member of the public.

The jury has already heard evidence suggesting that Ms. Cordingley's phone left the beach after the killing – and that its movements matched those of a blue Alfa Romeo owned by the accused.

Mr. Singh's sudden departure from Australia also pointed to his guilt, the prosecution has argued.

As the police were finding Toyah's body, he was organizing... a hurriedly arranged one-way trip back to India, Mr. Crane said last week as he opened his case.

The defence is yet to present any evidence, but in his opening address, Mr. Singh's barrister Greg McGuire described his client as a placid and caring man, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He also foreshadowed evidence to come later in the trial that, after his arrest, Mr. Singh told an undercover officer he had seen two masked men attack Ms. Cordingley and then had run away in fear - something he said was his biggest mistake.

Mr. McGuire has also said he will give evidence about other people both known and unknown who should come under suspicion.

Ms. Cordingley's boyfriend at the time, Marco Heidenreich, whom police quickly ruled out as a possible suspect, was among those who gave evidence last week.

The court heard he was an immediate police suspect - and that he had faced questions from Ms. Cordingley's father about whether he was involved in his girlfriend's disappearance, even before her body was found.

Photographs showing Mr. Heidenreich on a hike with a friend on the day Ms. Cordingley went missing have been shown to the court, with an expert saying he was confident the pictures were genuine and had not been doctored in any way.

The trial will return to the more conventional setting of the courthouse on Tuesday.