destination – Sunshine Coast

SUNSHINE COAST
The all – weather

The Sunshine Coast’s hinterland is a magical area to visit no matter what the time of year but it’s in the warmer months that its many special features gel wonderfully well.

It’s when the weather is hot that the region’s cooling breezes, refreshing rockpools, lakes and shady rainforests all come to the fore. It’s also often more pleasant to undertake other favoured activities, such as bushwalking, guided rainforest and birdwatching tours horseriding, canoeing and fishing, when the sun is shining.

>> Destination Sunshine Coast, Weekends For Two

The Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk is fantastic to experience at any time of year. The 58 kilometre walk winds through the Blackall Range and traverses some of the most scenic areas of the hinterland including Maleny Forest Reserve, Kondalilla National Park and Mapleton Falls National Park. The walk can be accessed at various starting points and naturally you can walk for as short or as long a period as you want.

A favoured winter activity of enjoying locally produced foods including avocados, pineapples and papaws as well as strawberries, vegetables and nuts in local restaurants is also an ideal summer experience. The only thing you’ll miss are the restaurant’s roaring fires!

Visiting the region’s art and craft galleries is also a year round pursuit. It’s estimated the hinterland is home to over 400 artists and the many galleries scattered around the region’s atmospheric villages are great places to see their works.

Providing the inspiration for the works of many of these artists is the natural beauty of the hinterland’s Glasshouse Mountains, a collection of 10 striking mountains which originated in the wake of volcanic eruptions eons ago. The volcanoes have eroded leaving only hardened plugs or rock spires. The Aboriginal dreaming story about these formations gives each of the mountains a name and character in a family, and tells a dramatic story of human relationships.

Captain James Cook gave the area its unusual English name while sailing past, on his way up Australia’s east coast, in 1770. From a distance they reminded him of the glass-making furnaces of his home town in Yorkshire. There are both sealed and unsealed roads through the Glass House Mountains National Park. Explore these roads and you’ll be rewarded with spectacular views no matter what the time of year.