Travel: Great Sandy National Park, Qld

Of all the places I’ve been in, I can’t think of anywhere that sophistication and isolation are so close.

I’m talking about Queensland’s Great Sandy National Park, just a 30-minute wild world away from uber-glamorous Noosa Heads, with its upmarket accommodation, dining and shopping so beloved by Melburnians in the Southern winter.

What gets me every time is how close apart these worlds are, offering the best of two parallel universes.

One minute you can be shopping for the latest labels in Hastings Street boutiques, or people-watching and cuddling cocktails in a Parisian-style sidewalk cafe and 20 minutes later you can be on the ferry crossing the Noosa River at Tewantin to the sparsely-populated Noosa North Shore, with your camper trailer or caravan in tow.

Another 10 minutes later, with four-wheel drive engaged, your tyres deflated and your vehicle beach driving permit in hand, you can access the Cooloola Coast at the third cutting and be heading along a wild beach without a care in the world, with the option of camping for the night in a 15km-long designated section at Teewah Beach – 20km north of the beach entry point.

If that experience is a bit close to nature for you, drive a further 20km north and turn into the delightful Freshwater Camping area, where you will find 59 shady, sand-based camping sites suitable for tents, trailers and small caravans.

Using either as a base, you can take great day trips throughout the Great Sandy National park.

Other camping in the Park includes Poverty Point, a small, undeveloped coastal site 13km south of Rainbow Beach overlooking Tin Can Bay, the Fig Tree Bay camping and day use area, Harry’s Camping and day-area on the upper Noosa River and various other campsites along the Noosa River itself.

To check out all the areas and how to book., click here.

Of course, some areas are very popular, especially in school holidays and over Christmas, Easter and long weekends, so you’ll need to book early to avoid disappointment.

Accessed by bitumen before you turn onto the beach is the large Noosa North Shore Campground, which runs along the beach behind the dunes that link the first and third access cuttings onto the sand.

Here you’ll find all the usual caravan park facilities in a ‘beachy’ environment, that includes large clumps of shady Pandanus plants for secluded camping. Then, secure in the knowledge that your overnight accommodation is secure and dry, you can head onto the beach unencumbered in your 4WD tow car to enjoy all the features of the park, both on and off the coast.

However, (Plan C) you needn’t stay overnight in the park to enjoy it. It’s close enough to Noosa for a good day trip, so you can head up the beach, cut inland at Freshwater and then return via Boreen Point and McKinnon Drive without re-crossing the Noosa River.

However, if you’d like an even shorter ‘wild’ experience without leaving the comfort of your five-star Noosa digs, cross the river by the Tewantin Ferry, drop your tyre pressures and take the first beach cutting off the bitumen.

Then turn left and drive to the broad sandy area to the mouth of the Noosa River Estuary, directly opposite the public area at the far north-west end of Hastings street, which in times gone by and before land values sky-rocketed, used to be one of Australia’s great beach-side caravan parks.

There’s no shade on the ‘wild side’ of the estuary and no over-night camping; just great family paddling water and a day out under a sunshade or pop-up shelter while you watch all the folk on the swanky side of the river mouth wishing they were you!