I'm on a visit to Queensland's Sunshine Coast, a major drawcard for tourism bringing in around 3.5 million visitors a year to its mainly outdoor attractions. Located in the south-east of Australia's so-called sunshine state, it enjoys a pleasant subtropical climate.
A train ride from my hometown of Bowral gets me to Sydney (Kingsford Smith) International Airport from where I catch a flight to the Sunshine Coast. (It's important now to specify Sydney's original airport by its full name, since we're getting a second one in October, the new Western Sydney International, but that's another story.) The Sunshine Coast has its own airport at Maroochydore and the flight time from Sydney is about an hour-and-a-half.
The Sunshine Coast is home to more national parks than any other region in Queensland, and these are scattered around the hinterland together with a number of attractive villages. One of these, Montville, I've visited several times, but this was the first occasion since I lived in this state many years ago.
The Sunshine Coast starts about one hour north of Brisbane, the Queensland state capital, and stretches along 60 kilometres of Pacific Ocean coastline from Pelican Waters in the south to Tewantin in the north. The Sunshine Coast area also extends west to encompass a number of national parks in the rainforest hinterland. This is where Montville is located, on the Blackall Mountain Range about 400 metres (1,300 ft) above sea level, and close to Kondalilla National Park.
Settlement first occurred in Montville in the late 1880s. The settlers soon discovered that the land in this area is particularly suited to fruit orchards and plantations. They grew oranges, lemons, pineapples, bananas and strawberries, among other crops, supplying much of the sunshine coast region with their produce and generating substantial income for themselves.
Before then the area had been extensively logged and the escarpment is still dotted with timber chutes, used for sliding logs down the mountain to be hauled away to local sawmills. The logs were stripped of their bark and made slippery with sap before being slid down the chute.
One such facility was Lander's Chute, named after Edmund Lander who leased the land in 1861 and was one of the pioneers of timber harvesting along the Blackall Range. The area has since grown into a small rural community of about 300 people known as Landers Shoot.
Among the first settlers were the Smith brothers, Henry, Edward and Alfred. In the 1890s, Henry and Alfred Smith acquired land on Montville's main road and on a back road. Henry was a true entrepreneur. He built the first cattle dip, opened two stores and a post office and ran the first private telephone line between one of the stores and his Montville home, which he built in 1895. That house still exists and after undergoing several changes of name and ownership, as well as substantial renovation, it is now called Eastnor House – part of the Montville Estate which offers guest accommodation.
It was Henry who proposed the name Montville for the settlement, recalling fond memories of his early years in the USA at Montville, Connecticut, where he had lived with his parents who emigrated there from England. The Queensland town had previously been called Razorback.
From the 1920s Montville was a thriving mountain holiday resort and also popular for convalescing. The Blackall Range was promoted as 'Queensland's Blue Mountains' (the Blue Mountains referenced being those in New South Wales, featured here) and guest houses abounded, especially in Montville. Sadly, many of these grand old buildings have been lost to bushfires.
In the 1970s, as the roads improved, Montville became accessible as a pleasant day trip from the coastal strip and from Brisbane, and the focus of local industry began to change from farming to tourism. The population began to increase as new infrastructure was developed.
However, the village today still has a population of only a little over 1,000 residents but it remains popular with tourists seeking a mountain retreat. The design of many of the buildings constructed in the second half of the 20th century was inspired by a European 'Alps' aesthetic. It also developed as an arts and craft destination, particularly with the establishment of the Montville Pottery business in the mid-1960s, now redeveloped as The Pottery Building.
I'm staying with friends from the UK, who in turn have exchanged homes with a local family. It is a spacious elevated house with splendid views over the district. I drive into the village centre, park my car and walk along Main Street. Still standing at number 167 is Poets Café (title picture), an attractive establishment in a beautiful location, although it receives mixed reviews. The Experience Montville website lists an incredible 87 businesses dotted throughout Montville, which is a huge number for such a small village.
Montville is home to an abundance of boutique retail outlets, making shopping in Montville a rewarding day out. Situated in historic and distinctive buildings, these shops offer a diverse range of products. You'll find artisan chocolatiers, candy and fudge makers, several boutiques, jewellers, pottery, contemporary art, candles, clocks, crystals, antiquities and other hinterland treasures.
I revisit the Montville Art Gallery, which showcases local and interstate artists and where the works of 41 artists are on permanent display. The gallery is located in a gorgeous 1890s Queenslander at 138 Main Street and it's open from 10am to 4pm, Thursday to Monday.
A favourite attraction among visitors is the Clock Shop (above), a quirky store featuring a variety of cuckoo clocks and German souvenirs, making it a fun place for families.
There are numerous outdoor attractions within easy reach of the village centre. Kondalilla National Park incorporates 327 hectares of lush subtropical rainforest and tall open forest on the western edge of the range. Its most popular attraction is Kondalilla Falls, which drops 90 metres from Skene Creek into some picturesque water pools below.
The Park is home to the Bunya Pine, which drops cones weighing up to 10 kg and containing large nuts on which the local Gubbi Gubbi people once fed. Fauna includes the rare spotted-tailed quoll, the peregrine falcon, the red goshawk and many reptiles and frogs.
The Glass House Mountains are also within easy reach of Montville, a cluster of what are really only hills that rise abruptly from the coastal plain. Known as volcanic plugs, they are so significant that they are listed on the Queensland and National Heritage Register as a landscape of national significance.
The Glass House Mountains are believed to have been formed about 27 million years ago, when volcanic activity produced molten rock that intruded as bodies beneath the surface and solidified into land rocks. Millions of years of erosion have removed the surrounding exteriors of volcanic cores and softer sandstone rock.
The mountains are really a cluster of thirteen hills that rise abruptly from the coastal plain on the Sunshine Coast. The highest hill is Mount Beerwah at 556 metres above sea level, but the most identifiable of all the hills is Mount Tibrogargan, which from certain angles bears a resemblance to a person facing east towards the ocean.
According to Parks Queensland, Glass House Mountains National Park contains a wide variety of terrain such as rocky peaks and pavements, steep hill slopes, gullies and swampy coastal plains which provide habitat for many different vegetation communities. The peaks themselves protect montane heath—an uncommon community on the Queensland coast—while heathlands, forest and woodlands are found across the surrounding hills and plains.
These diverse areas, and particularly the rocky pavements of the peaks, are important for biodiversity, providing habitat for twenty plant species of conservation significance.
Walking tracks lead through a variety of open forests to lookouts with panoramic views of the mountains. You can walk around the base of Mount Tibrogargan to see its profile from many angles and to the top of Mount Ngungun for spectacular views of nearby peaks and the surrounding landscape.
The Yul-yan-man track is accessible from Beerburrum and Tibrogargan trailheads. It offers a grade 5 walk for people with rock scrambling skills. There are other challenging summit routes and climbing sites for experienced rock climbers and abseilers.
For nature enthusiasts and avid hikers, Baroon Pocket Dam offers a range of walking trails that wind through the surrounding forests, providing expansive views of the dam, its catchment area and the beautiful tree-lined streams.
Built across the Obi Obi Creek and completed in 1989, Baroon Pocket Dam not only serves as a vital water source for the region but also offers a range of attractive recreational facilities for visitors to enjoy.
Montville has a true village charm. Its past is reflected in the mix of Tudor, English and Irish cottages of log or stone, of Swiss and Bavarian chalets, as well as the local 19th-century 'Queenslanders' – single-storey timber houses with wide verandas and corrugated iron roofs, built on stumps to give them elevation. It also has one of the most spectacular and panoramic views over a coastal plain.
Getting there
Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin all fly to the Sunshine Coast from Sydney and Melbourne. Sunshine Coast Airport also receives international flights from Auckland, Bali and Singapore.
Major and local car rental companies are located at Sunshine Coast Airport. Driving time from the airport to Montville is 30 minutes. Driving from Brisbane takes 90 minutes.
More information:
Photos: kgbo/Wikimedia Creative Commons except where otherwise credited
