Sunshine Coast

The Sunshine Coast has graduated from its 1980s reputation as a package holiday strip into something considerably more interesting, and Noosa is the reason. Noosa Heads — a small, low-rise resort town perched between a national park headland and the Noosa River estuary — is one of the genuinely great places to spend time in Australia. The surf at Main Beach is patrolled, consistent and swimmable by beginners. The Noosa National Park begins at the eastern end of Hastings Street and within fifteen minutes' walk delivers clifftop views, tea tree bush and the chance to see dolphins from the headland point.

The Noosa River runs inland from the estuary through Noosa Sound and Noosaville into Lake Cootharaba and the Cooloola Section of Great Sandy National Park — a vast wilderness of coloured sand cliffs, freshwater lakes and fig forest that most Sunshine Coast visitors never see. The canoe trail from Rainbow Beach through the Cooloola Wilderness is a two-day journey through country that could be wilderness camping anywhere on earth except that, at the end, there's a good restaurant.

The Sunshine Coast Hinterland rises sharply behind the coast — the Blackall Range towns of Maleny and Montville command views over the Glasshouse Mountains, and the Glass House Mountains themselves, rising from the flat coastal plain, have walking tracks with views back to the coast.