Noosa Heads National Park – My Favorite Places #1
I walked the trail along the headland toward Fairy Pools and Hells Gates. On either side was a curtain of green. Pines bordered the path. To the right the trees climbed the hill toward the top of the head, to the left the trees followed the plunging slope all the way to the rocks and sea below. The tropical air was warm and humid even beneath the trees where there was little breeze. It was still and quiet except for the sounds of the birds in the forest.
As I continued on my way, I was distracted by a window of blue that opened in the curtain of green trees to my left and I paused to look. As I turned, my eyes beheld the most wonderful, most beautiful sight I have ever seen in my life. There before me was a view from Heaven. Bracketed by the trees like a picture frame was the sunlit ocean. The water was the purest azure blue, the exact shade of blue you think of when you think of a clear, blue, tropical sea. Across the bay was another section of coast identical to my side with pines tumbling down the steep slope to the rocky shore below. Waves came in from the ocean and broke against the rocks in white foam.
I thought I had been struck speechless but even though there was no one in sight to hear me, the word “awesome” escaped from my lips involuntarily not once but twice. I thought I had seen everything, but I thought, “God, you have really outdone Yourself this time.” I stood stunned and amazed, lost in contemplation of the grandeur presented to my eyes.
The place: Noosa Heads National Park, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. The date: Saturday, January 11, 1992.
As of that moment, Noosa Heads became one of my top three favorite places on Earth and still is today. I have seen many sights, some of them if I told you, you wouldn’t believe, and many of them have been of extraordinary beauty. But not one of them has ever surpassed Noosa Heads.
I had arrived by bus from Maroochydore the afternoon before. Actually, I arrived by accident. I was supposed to get off at Sunshine Beach but missed my stop and wound up at a much better place. I immediately took a liking to the area. More tourist oriented than M’dore but nothing like the Gold Coast. It seemed to have everything you needed, shops, restaurants, beaches, even a national park.
In the morning, I went down to the beach. I explored Main Beach and the much less busy but just as nice beaches of the Spit west of it towards Noosa Sound and the Noosa River. At the end of the spit I left the bay and went inland on trails through the woods to the river side of the small peninsula where I found a few small river beaches. But since the Noosa River is not as big as the Maroochy River, these river beaches were nothing like what I found in M’dore.
From there I retraced my steps and headed east. I only intended to explore the small coves and beaches on the east side of Main Beach, but once I got going I kept going. Before too long, I found myself at the entrance to the national park. To get to there I had to take a boardwalk up from the beach into the pine-studded hills. Among the trees, hotels and apartment buildings climbed the ridges like toys left by a giant, but once I actually entered the park and left the city behind it was like stepping into a different, far away world, light years away from the tourist resorts. Immediately I could see why the land had been set aside for a national park.
The trail forked, one track following the coastline and another cutting across the headland to Hells Gates and Alexandria Bay. A man there pointed out to me a goanna perched in a tree, a huge, fat lizard maybe four or five feet long, including tail. To my American eyes it looked like a Komodo dragon. Its skin blended in perfectly with the color of the tree trunk on which it sat, except for the yellow stripes on its feet. If the man hadn’t been there to point it out to me, I never would’ve seen it. Of course, I didn’t have a camera with me since I hadn’t set out for the day intending on going into the national park.
As I continued on my way, I was distracted by a window of blue that opened in the curtain of green trees to my left and I paused to look. As I turned, my eyes beheld the most wonderful, most beautiful sight I have ever seen in my life. There before me was a view from Heaven. Bracketed by the trees like a picture frame was the sunlit ocean. The water was the purest azure blue, the exact shade of blue you think of when you think of a clear, blue, tropical sea. Across the bay was another section of coast identical to my side with pines tumbling down the steep slope to the rocky shore below. Waves came in from the ocean and broke against the rocks in white foam.
I thought I had been struck speechless but even though there was no one in sight to hear me, the word “awesome” escaped from my lips involuntarily not once but twice. I thought I had seen everything, but I thought, “God, you have really outdone Yourself this time.” I stood stunned and amazed, lost in contemplation of the grandeur presented to my eyes.
The place: Noosa Heads National Park, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. The date: Saturday, January 11, 1992.
As of that moment, Noosa Heads became one of my top three favorite places on Earth and still is today. I have seen many sights, some of them if I told you, you wouldn’t believe, and many of them have been of extraordinary beauty. But not one of them has ever surpassed Noosa Heads.
I had arrived by bus from Maroochydore the afternoon before. Actually, I arrived by accident. I was supposed to get off at Sunshine Beach but missed my stop and wound up at a much better place. I immediately took a liking to the area. More tourist oriented than M’dore but nothing like the Gold Coast. It seemed to have everything you needed, shops, restaurants, beaches, even a national park.
In the morning, I went down to the beach. I explored Main Beach and the much less busy but just as nice beaches of the Spit west of it towards Noosa Sound and the Noosa River. At the end of the spit I left the bay and went inland on trails through the woods to the river side of the small peninsula where I found a few small river beaches. But since the Noosa River is not as big as the Maroochy River, these river beaches were nothing like what I found in M’dore.
From there I retraced my steps and headed east. I only intended to explore the small coves and beaches on the east side of Main Beach, but once I got going I kept going. Before too long, I found myself at the entrance to the national park. To get to there I had to take a boardwalk up from the beach into the pine-studded hills. Among the trees, hotels and apartment buildings climbed the ridges like toys left by a giant, but once I actually entered the park and left the city behind it was like stepping into a different, far away world, light years away from the tourist resorts. Immediately I could see why the land had been set aside for a national park.
The trail forked, one track following the coastline and another cutting across the headland to Hells Gates and Alexandria Bay. A man there pointed out to me a goanna perched in a tree, a huge, fat lizard maybe four or five feet long, including tail. To my American eyes it looked like a Komodo dragon. Its skin blended in perfectly with the color of the tree trunk on which it sat, except for the yellow stripes on its feet. If the man hadn’t been there to point it out to me, I never would’ve seen it. Of course, I didn’t have a camera with me since I hadn’t set out for the day intending on going into the national park.
The trail forked, one track following the coastline and another cutting across the headland to Hells Gates and Alexandria Bay. A man there pointed out to me a goanna perched in a tree, a huge, fat lizard maybe four or five feet long, including tail. To my American eyes it looked like a Komodo dragon. Its skin blended in perfectly with the color of the tree trunk on which it sat, except for the yellow stripes on its feet. If the man hadn’t been there to point it out to me, I never would’ve seen it. Of course, I didn’t have a camera with me since I hadn’t set out for the day intending on going into the national park.
I took the track that followed the coast and it was there that the picture vista opened up to me like a window in the trees and I beheld Laguna Bay and Noosa North Shore across it, the view of a lifetime for which there are no words. Beautiful and gorgeous pale by comparison to what I saw and how it affected me then and still does today. If, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, then that sight right there at that moment in time was worth every word in every language from the beginning to the end of time. Even now, every time I think about it, I am still overcome by emotion.
I continued along the Coastal Track, past more picturesque scenery until I arrived at the easternmost point of the headland itself that juts out into the Pacific.
On the northern tip of the point was the Fairy Pools, small, shallow hollows scattered in the granite platform of the head, filled with crystal clear salt water. Sand and smaller rocks littered the bottoms and the water was very warm to the touch from sitting still under the glare of the tropical sun all day. The sporadically spaced pools reminded me of cups of warm seltzer water countersunk into the rock.
From there I walked along the cliff to Hells Gates, yet another sight that made this trip and my life worthwhile. Hells Gates are two rocky canyons in the headland that terminate in small, shallow caves in the cliff. I could immediately see how the name came about. The way the water rushes in on the waves into those two dark, mysterious tunnels, it looks like the ocean is washing souls down into the depths of Hell. This was another glorious spot to take a multitude of pictures, if only I had my camera with me that day.
As I stood at the top of the rocky bluff admiring the view of the Gates, another man there pointed out to me a large turtle swimming in the sea off the headland. It had to have been enormous to be visible from the height of the cliffs as it glided beneath the waves of the clear ocean water.
I crawled out to the very edge of the cliff and just sat for a while on an extruding rock formation, mesmerized by the waves crashing on the rocks below. Something about the ocean always hits a harmonic in me. I could've stayed there forever. I thought Noosa Heads was the best place I had seen in Australia and I had seen far more of it than most people. Eventually, after spending time sitting in the sun on the rocks at the edge of the cliffs watching the ocean, I knew I had to move on or I never would.
From Hells Gates it was a short walk down a trail from the headland to Alexandria Bay, a long stretch of white sandy beach with undeveloped, protected lands behind it and open ocean in front. On that day it was virtually deserted, offering quiet, peaceful solitude. I walked down the beach to more rocky headlands where I found Lion Rock, the Blowhole, and the Devils Kitchen, a much larger version of Hells Gates.
I took the track that followed the coast and it was there that the picture vista opened up to me like a window in the trees and I beheld Laguna Bay and Noosa North Shore across it, the view of a lifetime for which there are no words. Beautiful and gorgeous pale by comparison to what I saw and how it affected me then and still does today. If, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, then that sight right there at that moment in time was worth every word in every language from the beginning to the end of time. Even now, every time I think about it, I am still overcome by emotion.
I continued along the Coastal Track, past more picturesque scenery until I arrived at the easternmost point of the headland itself that juts out into the Pacific.
On the northern tip of the point was the Fairy Pools, small, shallow hollows scattered in the granite platform of the head, filled with crystal clear salt water. Sand and smaller rocks littered the bottoms and the water was very warm to the touch from sitting still under the glare of the tropical sun all day. The sporadically spaced pools reminded me of cups of warm seltzer water countersunk into the rock.
From there I walked along the cliff to Hells Gates, yet another sight that made this trip and my life worthwhile. Hells Gates are two rocky canyons in the headland that terminate in small, shallow caves in the cliff. I could immediately see how the name came about. The way the water rushes in on the waves into those two dark, mysterious tunnels, it looks like the ocean is washing souls down into the depths of Hell. This was another glorious spot to take a multitude of pictures, if only I had my camera with me that day.
As I stood at the top of the rocky bluff admiring the view of the Gates, another man there pointed out to me a large turtle swimming in the sea off the headland. It had to have been enormous to be visible from the height of the cliffs as it glided beneath the waves of the clear ocean water.
I crawled out to the very edge of the cliff and just sat for a while on an extruding rock formation, mesmerized by the waves crashing on the rocks below. Something about the ocean always hits a harmonic in me. I could've stayed there forever. I thought Noosa Heads was the best place I had seen in Australia and I had seen far more of it than most people. Eventually, after spending time sitting in the sun on the rocks at the edge of the cliffs watching the ocean, I knew I had to move on or I never would.
From Hells Gates it was a short walk down a trail from the headland to Alexandria Bay, a long stretch of white sandy beach with undeveloped, protected lands behind it and open ocean in front. On that day it was virtually deserted, offering quiet, peaceful solitude. I walked down the beach to more rocky headlands where I found Lion Rock, the Blowhole, and the Devils Kitchen, a much larger version of Hells Gates.
From there I left the cleared and marked national park trails and took some out of the way, smaller, lesser-used trails into the bush west of the coastline. As soon as the beach and headland were left behind, I was in a scorching hot, dry land of brush. Without the help of the onshore breeze it was sweltering under a bright, sunny, cloudless sky and I had no water. It felt as if I was in the desert of the Outback, the true interior of Australia, even though I was never more than a few hundred yards from the tropical ocean coast. In this small pocket of protected wilderness surrounded by human dwellings I saw more wildlife. Near the end of the trail I came across a big, long lace monitor, but this beast was not quite as huge as the goanna I saw at the beginning of the walk. I also encountered a pair of wild Australian brush-turkeys.
After wandering in the empty coastal scrubland I eventually found my way back to the ocean at Sunshine Beach, a small, empty beach much like the one at Alexandria Bay, except this one had been developed. Beachside houses stretched as far as I could see south of the national park. I walked down the shore as far as Crank St. where I went inland to David Low Way and headed back to my hotel in Noosa Hill via Noosa Fair and Noosa Junction.
For the next two days I was forced to endure Tropical Cyclone Betsy. On the first day she brought overcast skies, strong, heavy winds, and huge, high, strong waves. Due to the high seas and dangerous conditions, the red flag was out and the beach was officially closed. But that didn’t stop the surfers and a few swimmers, nor did it deter hordes of people from descending on the beach to watch the waves that totally covered the sand and crashed against the retaining rocks. There were just as many people there in the wind, clouds, and drizzle as there was the day before when it was perfectly hot and sunny.
The next morning brought more overcast skies and cyclone-force winds for the second straight day. Although there were a few breaks in the clouds late in the afternoon, the rains began after that. In the morning I went to explore nearby Noosaville and Tewantin but in the afternoon I went back to Main Beach.
If the waves were huge the day before, they were gargantuan today. The scene fairly resembled some dreary nightmare vision of the end of time. As in other hurricanes and cyclones I have experienced, while it was a tad bit scary and worrisome, at the same time I was fascinated not only by the storm’s violence and potential for destruction but also by its awesome power and beauty. While the low-lying clouds overhead broiled and scudded by in shades of gray and white, the sky on the northern horizon merged from a dark, navy blue to black. The combined sound of the wind that bent the palm trees over and the waves as they roared in to pound the coast was deafening like a freight train two feet from the track. In fact the whole scene resembled a train wreck in slow motion. You know it is going to happen, yet you can’t make yourself look away. If you’ve ever lived through a hurricane you know what I mean.
The sea itself had been transformed by the storm from the placid, clear blue of two days before to a roiling cauldron of breaking white foam and a dark, velvety blue almost the color of crude oil. The enormous waves were like a constant, changing pattern of mountains and valleys that assaulted the besieged shore like an unending army. Some of them towered up to forty feet and the average was probably at least thirty. They raced all the way over the sand and pounded themselves against the retaining riprap at the highest point of the beach, a level the water didn’t even come close to touching on the calm, sunny afternoon two days earlier. The battered shore was losing tons and tons of sand. The spray created by the collision of wave and rock spattered the curious onlookers like myself along the elevated beachwalk with cold droplets. And this wasn’t even the eye of the storm.
They said once a year they usually have a bad cyclone in Queensland. And this year I happened to be at the right place at the right time. The entire rest of the state was sunny and warm except for a small slice of the southeast coast from the New South Wales border up to Noosa, where I was.
The storm was supposed to last until the middle of the week, but the very next day dawned bright and sunny again, like the first day I arrived. It was also hot, about 93°F, or 34°C as they measure it in Australia. Not wanting to miss another opportunity I took my camera and headed back up Hastings St. to the national park. To be on the safe side, I took two additional rolls of film.
At the very beginning of the trail near the entrance to the park I came upon a group of people intently staring up into the trees off the path. Of course, as all humans do, I looked where they were gazing. I saw not one, but two wild koalas in two different trees, motionless and placid. I took out my camera, switched lenses and took telephotos of the koalas in their natural habitat.
After observing the koalas, I retraced my steps of three days before, following the Coastal Track. I snapped pictures right and left with such frequency that I threatened to wear out my shutter – Witches Cauldron, Tea Tree Bay, Dolphin Point, Granite Bay, Hells Gates, and the Gates at Noosa Head itself.
I continued on down and across the beach of Alexandria Bay and this time, instead of using the official, marked track, I went up the cliffs at the south end of the bay on unofficial and unmarked trails to Lion Rock and Devils Kitchen. On the south side of Devils Kitchen was a small, isolated, rocky cove with a narrow beach and there were no trails down to it. It was only reachable by a treacherous climb down smooth rock faces or an equally treacherous climb down an eroded gully. But of course nothing like that every stopped me when there was a place I really wanted to see. I carefully worked my way down the cliff from rock to rock until I was at the bottom.
There was no one around. I had the whole place to myself. It was magnificent and beautiful, like a South Seas hideaway, with palms, smooth ball-like rocks, sand, and the enclosing cliffs. The only way out was by climbing the rocky cliffs again or up the slippery, washed out gulley. Since I had already tackled climbing the cliffs on the way down, I thought I would try going up the ravine to get out. Though it looked easier, it turned out to be just as hard. I constantly slipped and slid backwards on dead palm fronds, loose rocks, and sliding dirt, contributing in my own human way to the further erosion of the gulley. No matter how much the ravine fought back against my efforts, I persevered and eventually conquered it, arriving at the sunny top hot and tired.
I made my way, creating my own trail where there was none to Paradise Cave, a huge grotto in the headland much like Hells Gates and Devils Kitchen except on a much larger scale. The tide was high and the seas were still high in the aftereffects of the cyclone so I was forced to take a risky climb along the side of the cliff and into the cave itself, made slippery by dripping water and slime on the rocks, in order to reach the bottom to take more pictures. At the back, in the farthest, deepest reaches of the cave was a glob of white sea foam that looked just like snow in the darkness. By the time I was finished, the tide had gone out a little and the water level was lower, making it easier to walk out by wading through the surf to a convenient place to climb back out via the cliff.
After wandering in the empty coastal scrubland I eventually found my way back to the ocean at Sunshine Beach, a small, empty beach much like the one at Alexandria Bay, except this one had been developed. Beachside houses stretched as far as I could see south of the national park. I walked down the shore as far as Crank St. where I went inland to David Low Way and headed back to my hotel in Noosa Hill via Noosa Fair and Noosa Junction.
For the next two days I was forced to endure Tropical Cyclone Betsy. On the first day she brought overcast skies, strong, heavy winds, and huge, high, strong waves. Due to the high seas and dangerous conditions, the red flag was out and the beach was officially closed. But that didn’t stop the surfers and a few swimmers, nor did it deter hordes of people from descending on the beach to watch the waves that totally covered the sand and crashed against the retaining rocks. There were just as many people there in the wind, clouds, and drizzle as there was the day before when it was perfectly hot and sunny.
The next morning brought more overcast skies and cyclone-force winds for the second straight day. Although there were a few breaks in the clouds late in the afternoon, the rains began after that. In the morning I went to explore nearby Noosaville and Tewantin but in the afternoon I went back to Main Beach.
If the waves were huge the day before, they were gargantuan today. The scene fairly resembled some dreary nightmare vision of the end of time. As in other hurricanes and cyclones I have experienced, while it was a tad bit scary and worrisome, at the same time I was fascinated not only by the storm’s violence and potential for destruction but also by its awesome power and beauty. While the low-lying clouds overhead broiled and scudded by in shades of gray and white, the sky on the northern horizon merged from a dark, navy blue to black. The combined sound of the wind that bent the palm trees over and the waves as they roared in to pound the coast was deafening like a freight train two feet from the track. In fact the whole scene resembled a train wreck in slow motion. You know it is going to happen, yet you can’t make yourself look away. If you’ve ever lived through a hurricane you know what I mean.
The sea itself had been transformed by the storm from the placid, clear blue of two days before to a roiling cauldron of breaking white foam and a dark, velvety blue almost the color of crude oil. The enormous waves were like a constant, changing pattern of mountains and valleys that assaulted the besieged shore like an unending army. Some of them towered up to forty feet and the average was probably at least thirty. They raced all the way over the sand and pounded themselves against the retaining riprap at the highest point of the beach, a level the water didn’t even come close to touching on the calm, sunny afternoon two days earlier. The battered shore was losing tons and tons of sand. The spray created by the collision of wave and rock spattered the curious onlookers like myself along the elevated beachwalk with cold droplets. And this wasn’t even the eye of the storm.
They said once a year they usually have a bad cyclone in Queensland. And this year I happened to be at the right place at the right time. The entire rest of the state was sunny and warm except for a small slice of the southeast coast from the New South Wales border up to Noosa, where I was.
The storm was supposed to last until the middle of the week, but the very next day dawned bright and sunny again, like the first day I arrived. It was also hot, about 93°F, or 34°C as they measure it in Australia. Not wanting to miss another opportunity I took my camera and headed back up Hastings St. to the national park. To be on the safe side, I took two additional rolls of film.
At the very beginning of the trail near the entrance to the park I came upon a group of people intently staring up into the trees off the path. Of course, as all humans do, I looked where they were gazing. I saw not one, but two wild koalas in two different trees, motionless and placid. I took out my camera, switched lenses and took telephotos of the koalas in their natural habitat.
After observing the koalas, I retraced my steps of three days before, following the Coastal Track. I snapped pictures right and left with such frequency that I threatened to wear out my shutter – Witches Cauldron, Tea Tree Bay, Dolphin Point, Granite Bay, Hells Gates, and the Gates at Noosa Head itself.
I continued on down and across the beach of Alexandria Bay and this time, instead of using the official, marked track, I went up the cliffs at the south end of the bay on unofficial and unmarked trails to Lion Rock and Devils Kitchen. On the south side of Devils Kitchen was a small, isolated, rocky cove with a narrow beach and there were no trails down to it. It was only reachable by a treacherous climb down smooth rock faces or an equally treacherous climb down an eroded gully. But of course nothing like that every stopped me when there was a place I really wanted to see. I carefully worked my way down the cliff from rock to rock until I was at the bottom.
There was no one around. I had the whole place to myself. It was magnificent and beautiful, like a South Seas hideaway, with palms, smooth ball-like rocks, sand, and the enclosing cliffs. The only way out was by climbing the rocky cliffs again or up the slippery, washed out gulley. Since I had already tackled climbing the cliffs on the way down, I thought I would try going up the ravine to get out. Though it looked easier, it turned out to be just as hard. I constantly slipped and slid backwards on dead palm fronds, loose rocks, and sliding dirt, contributing in my own human way to the further erosion of the gulley. No matter how much the ravine fought back against my efforts, I persevered and eventually conquered it, arriving at the sunny top hot and tired.
I made my way, creating my own trail where there was none to Paradise Cave, a huge grotto in the headland much like Hells Gates and Devils Kitchen except on a much larger scale. The tide was high and the seas were still high in the aftereffects of the cyclone so I was forced to take a risky climb along the side of the cliff and into the cave itself, made slippery by dripping water and slime on the rocks, in order to reach the bottom to take more pictures. At the back, in the farthest, deepest reaches of the cave was a glob of white sea foam that looked just like snow in the darkness. By the time I was finished, the tide had gone out a little and the water level was lower, making it easier to walk out by wading through the surf to a convenient place to climb back out via the cliff.
On my way up, I saw my efforts were being watched. At the top I met a very friendly and chatty man from Brisbane who wanted to know how I liked the cave. One thing I found out about Australians is that they like to talk, especially if they find out you’re an American. He and I talked for the longest time about sports in Australia and the US, their differences and similarities. I finally had to take my leave by asking directions or else I think I might still be there talking today.
This time, instead of heading for Sunshine Beach, I trekked back cross country, taking the Tanglewood Track back to the Park HQ. The walk seemed to take forever and though I knew eventually I would return to civilization, I began to wonder how much longer it would be. As before, once inside the trees there was no breeze and it became stiflingly hot and I got a serious case of cottonmouth before I made it to the HQ.
The next two days I spent mainly on the beach, one of the best in Australia and supposedly one of the best surfing beaches in the country as well, before moving on to Torquay at Hervey Bay. But Noosa was a place I found where I could spend another week, or two, or forever. I know for a fact that if I had grown up there, I would know by heart every twist and turn of every trail in the park.
There were many places I fell in love with when I was in Australia, many places that could be considered paradise – Mackay, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Rockhampton, Townsville, Cairns, Darwin, to name just a few. Many places where I would be happy to spend the rest of my life but, if I had to choose the grandest, the most beautiful, the most perfect place I have ever been, it would have to be Noosa Heads National Park.
Jeff Vanderslice
This time, instead of heading for Sunshine Beach, I trekked back cross country, taking the Tanglewood Track back to the Park HQ. The walk seemed to take forever and though I knew eventually I would return to civilization, I began to wonder how much longer it would be. As before, once inside the trees there was no breeze and it became stiflingly hot and I got a serious case of cottonmouth before I made it to the HQ.
The next two days I spent mainly on the beach, one of the best in Australia and supposedly one of the best surfing beaches in the country as well, before moving on to Torquay at Hervey Bay. But Noosa was a place I found where I could spend another week, or two, or forever. I know for a fact that if I had grown up there, I would know by heart every twist and turn of every trail in the park.
There were many places I fell in love with when I was in Australia, many places that could be considered paradise – Mackay, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Rockhampton, Townsville, Cairns, Darwin, to name just a few. Many places where I would be happy to spend the rest of my life but, if I had to choose the grandest, the most beautiful, the most perfect place I have ever been, it would have to be Noosa Heads National Park.
Jeff Vanderslice
