Hiking Noosa’s wild coast

Today’s story begins, as so many do these days, with a seemingly innocuous suggestion paired with an overabundance of confidence. We were in Noosa Heads,¹ about two hours north of Brisbane, and the first stop of our official 8-Weeks On the Queensland Coast Tour 2024™.

For the uninitiated, Noosa is like Cape Cod with a tan and a surfboard—a holiday playground for people with too much money and not enough sunscreen. It’s got the same boutique shops, overpriced restaurants, and Instagram-able beaches, but with fewer linen suits and more flip-flops. Don't be fooled by the beach bum aesthetic, though. The real estate prices here would make your eyes water.

Turns out there’s a beautiful national park in Noosa.² The park covers the entire headland, its cliffs jutting into the Pacific Ocean. I mean, they're pretty spoiled for amazing coastal walks in Queensland, but the park at Noosa might be one of the very best. It’s only a few miles around and offers stunning beaches, craggy headlands, and cliffs so picturesque that you overlook the constant threat of death by dehydration. You’re also likely to see koalas, dolphins, and humpbacks.³

Our Airbnb hosts were rich, young, and fit. The type who run 10 miles Every Single Day and leave scribbled notes in the margins of their Local Area Guide like, “You don’t want to miss this life-changing hike!” and “You can’t get lost. We don’t!”⁴ Their guidebook was more propaganda than helpful hints, filled with grand promises and deceptively vague directions.

But you know what? I’m also endlessly optimistic.

So when I read our host’s cheery suggestion, "Do the loop around the whole park!" like it was a quick lap around the block, I thought, “Oh heck yeah, that sounds perfect!” Rick, reading over my shoulder, said, "Um, no."

I quickly laced up my broke-ass sneakers—the ones that’ve seen better days and better continents—and set off carrying nothing but my camera and the assumption that I couldn’t possibly die of sunstroke or get eaten by whatever apex predator prowls the coastlines of lower Queensland.⁵

Now, the typical way to hike the park is from Noosa Heads and head clockwise as far as you like and then return to town for a deconstructed avocado toast and a single-origin flat white coffee. I laugh in the face of typical, though. Hah! Well, and I was already staying at the ass end of the park. Which means I started on Sunrise Beach and worked my way counterclockwise to town.⁶

Unfortunately, our perky hosts neglected to mention that navigating the park from the Sunrise Beach side is, erm, challenging. You have to somehow find an entrance from within an endless maze of cul-de-sacs in a tony residential neighborhood. The park paths are unmarked and poorly maintained on that side of the park.⁷

After free-roaming through the hills and yards of Sunrise Beach, I suddenly found myself on Sunshine Beach.⁸ I have no idea how I ended up on a beach when I was hiking uphill to the top of the cliffs, but whatever, I did finally find a hidden entrance to the park up a looooooong flight of stairs. Success!

Just 45 minutes in, I was ready to begin Seeing Things in Earnest. First off, Paradise Caves. Which I could not find. So, like Siri recalculating the route, I headed for Alexandria Bay lookout. Which I did not find, either. The paths to both seemed to peter out in the sand, so I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t going to end up in yet another rich person’s backyard.

Hiking is hard.

I eventually found my way to Alexandria Bay, though, which was empty, vast, and perfect. Of course, it was also at the bottom of another looooooong set of stairs designed to mock me. I collapsed on the sand and might’ve stayed there forever had I not been spurred by the knowledge that the waves would eventually reclaim me if I did. *sigh*

So it was back up the stairs and along the cliffs to Hell’s Gates—the highest, windiest, most perilous point of the entire trek. Fun!

Hell's Gates is more than just a great name. It’s a natural cleft in the sandstone cliffs, formed over millions of years as waves relentlessly pounded the rocks, carving out a deep, narrow gorge. The power of the ocean is on full display here, with the waves crashing into the base of the cliffs, creating a dramatic, thunderous effect. The area is known for its wild beauty and is a popular spot for whale watching during migration season. And, hoo boy, is it windy. One wrong move, and I'd be part of the seascape—that view, though? [mwah].

Next along the way were the Fairy Pools. The directions I'd copied from the interwebs were more like geocache clues: “Climb the hill and through the low hedges to find a low bench overlooking the sea. Scramble down the sheer face of the cliff.” That’s where they lost me. I haven’t scrambled for anything since I dropped my last taco.

But I saw them from above and can confirm they exist, tucked away along the rocky coastline. These natural tidal pools fill with seawater at high tide, creating small, quiet, crystal-clear basins that contrast with the rough surf an arm’s length away. They looked like an excellent spot to unwind away from the more crowded beaches. For young people, anyway. Young people who can scramble. 

Then came Granite Bay, a popular spot for surfers who've made peace with their own mortality. One of the more isolated surf spots in Noosa National Park, the waves here are 2 to 5 feet high on normal days and up to 15 feet during swells. The bay is infamour for the menacing, jagged granite boulders that line the beach. Wiping out at Granite Bay can mean more than just a dunk in the ocean. Surfers are advised to exit waves far from shore to avoid being driven into the rock-strewn shallows.

Speaking of surfing, Noosa National Park is a certified National Surfing Reserve. That means the waves here are famous, and surfers treat them with the reverence usually reserved for deities or really good coffee. The waves vary from "casual 2-footers" to "oh my god, how do you still have legs after that?" And while I’m not a surfer, I’m happy to report that I have plenty of limbs left because I avoided those granite boulders like the plague.

Dolphin Point was next, though I’m not sure why they call it that. There wasn’t a single dolphin to point at. Great beach, though. Tea Tree Bay was prettier and promised wild koalas and tranquility. The air was thick with eucalyptus and disappointment at not seeing a single koala. I was informed later that I probably needed to look up instead of down—pro tip for future adventurers. The smell of the tea trees was pleasant, though—a sort of nature's essential oil diffuser.

Near the end of the walk was the Boiling Pot lookout. It seemed an overly menacing name for such a scenic spot. On a typical day, the waves kind of crash into some rocks below? I guess it’s supposed to look like bubbling water. It did not. Maybe it’s more threatening-looking to those overdressed, tea-sipping British aristocrats sweating through their wool uniforms as they captained ships up and down Australia’s tropical coast.

My hike pretty much ended when I reached the spot where most people begin—Little Cove. It'd been about 4 hours in the sun and I was glad to find water and a bathroom.⁹

After a little special Geoff time, I found Rick soaking up the sun on Noosa's Main Beach. We had a little dip in the ocean before finding a fancy little restaurant with expansive views and espresso martinis. A perfectly satisfactory ending to a fantastic hike.

Maybe our over-enthusiastic Airbnb hosts had been right—this hike was life-changing. Or at least, it changed the way I felt about stairs, sunscreen, and trusting directions from anyone who runs 10 miles before breakfast.