Distance: 12km
Difficulty: 4/10
Reward vs. Effort: 10/10
With the sun still shining on the second day of my weekend getaway, I made my way to my favourite place on the Sunshine Coast, Noosa. A few months ago I was in Brisbane for work and visited my parents who are fortunate enough to call the Sunshine Coast home. We went to Noosa for a much needed de-stress where my dad and I went for a brief run on the Noosa Coastal track. We unfortunately were tight on time so only made it part way around the headland, but I vowed to come back to complete this epic walk!
Plenty of other people had the same thoughts as I did about taking advantage of the gorgeous weather, making some of the viewpoints difficult to get a happy snap, but lucky for me not as many people journeyed out to complete the full hike so I got some uninterrupted views and vantage points for photos. If you prefer a quieter hike where you aren’t excusing yourself to get past people and surfboards every couple of minutes (it’s not as bad as it sounds though) try avoiding the weekends!
How to get to there:
Noosa National Park is approximately 140km north of Brisbane and should hopefully take less than 2 hours by car (traffic depending). Once on the highway, stay on the Sunshine Motorway/ State Route 70 towards Noosa Heads. I found the instructions on Google Maps a bit confusing so my best advice if you don’t have access to some form of navigation is to follow the signs for the State Routes, first 70, followed by 6 until you hit Noosa Parade.
Be prepared to spend as long finding a park in Noosa as you did getting there! Take the good with the bad-> beaches this beautiful don’t stay a secret. An alternative could be to park at Sunshine Beach, the turn around point for this hike and complete the hike in reverse.
What you need to know:
There are several hikes within the Noosa National Park, each colour coded and well-marked. The walk I did was the ‘Coastal Track’ which is marked in blue throughout.
The Coastal Track is approximately 11km with a mix of footpath, track and beach.
Time taken to complete the track was approximately 2 hours but allow yourself 3 hours to truly soak up the views, take pictures and have some rest stops.
Trail Notes
If you were lucky enough or had enough patience to snag a car park in Noosa, start your hike from the Day-use area in Noosa National Park.
Only approximately 300m from the start you will reach your first point of interest, the ‘Boiling Pot’. The track is wide and wheelchair friendly. It’s referred to as the boiling pot due to the swirling water around a rock formation mimicking a boiling kettle.
Continue for another 900m to Dolphin Point. Not surprisingly, this lookout won its name for the reported dolphin sightings, although I didn’t personally witness this. On the way to this lookout, walk past Tea Tree Bay which is a popular spot for surfers or sunbakers looking for a little more privacy than the main beach of Noosa. This is not a patrolled section of the beach. The lookout branches off the marked ‘coastal track’ so make sure you check this out before continuing.
Next on this track is Hell’s Gates. The track becomes unsealed but still mostly flat and easy underfoot. Hell’s Gate is a high bluff where the water crashes into the middle of it. And turns out, it is exceptionally difficult to photograph in all its glory!
After trying and not successfully achieving a masterful photograph (times like these makes me wish I had taken photography courses) I continued my way to Alexandria Bay. Alexandria Bay is a well-known, some say famous, nudist beach. I saw a couple of topless sunbathers but no nudists during my walk across this section. The sand here is quite soft, making this section a bit of a trudge. Walk close to water where the sand is tougher.
You’re going to be glad you had a decent warm up as the last section the hike is fairly uphill. Beautiful views from the lookout reward your efforts and uninterrupted views across Sunshine Beach are the final treat as you climb down many stairs to get to the beach. If you aren’t planning on swimming, truthfully there isn’t much added benefit in making your way down the multiple stairs knowing you will have to turn around and climb up them. However if you are like me and can’t stand a job unfinished, you may have the desire to get to the shorelines of Sunshine Beach regardless of the knowledge of having to make your way back up.
Retrace your steps back towards Alexandria Beach. Once back, you can choose to follow the same track or follow the Tanglewood Track which was slightly longer. I deliberated this for a fair while before deciding to retrace my steps around the coastline. I just love the coastline and knowing it could be awhile before I get to enjoy this scenery again I decided to leave Tanglewood Track for another day.
Reward yourself with lunch/ coffee/ice cream/ swim-> whatever takes your fancy as a way to wrap up an epic hike!
This signifies the start of the walk. You could actual go either way-> go left for a footpath with un-interrupted beach views or right for the boardwalk option amongst the trees (I went right)
The board walk is built around the trees giving it a tree top feel.
The Boiling Pot-> the swirling water around the rock formation is suppose to be cognisant of a kettle boiling.
Dolphins Point: There are plenty of chairs here if you are keen to stay and catch glimpse of the dolphins rumoured to inhabit the area.
Hells Gate: told you my photography was not up to par! You'll just have to come check out how spectacular it is for yourselves!
The beautiful finisher to a fantastic hike. Walk down numerous stairs to check out the little sister of Noosa, Sunshine Beach. It is considerably less busy but arguably just as pretty.
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