Noosa National Park

Noosa National Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Noosa National Park begins where Hastings Street, the smart beachfront strip of Noosa Heads on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, ends, two hours north of Brisbane, and it is one of the most visited national parks in Australia for the simple reason that anyone can walk into it from their hotel in ten minutes. It is free, it needs no guide, and its main path, the Coastal Walk, is sealed and nearly level for the first kilometre, suitable for prams and wheelchairs as far as Dolphin Point. Parking at the park entrance is hopeless after eight in the morning, so walk in along the boardwalk from Main Beach or take the local bus.

The few tours attached to the park's name are really tours of the sea beside it: the ocean adventure boats that run out from the Noosa river past the headland, fast and bouncy, looking for the resident dolphins and, in season, humpback whales and turtles, with the park's cliffs as the backdrop; the sea-kayak tours along the headland; and, further afield, the kayak-and-4×4 trips with dolphins at Double Island Point in the Great Sandy National Park to the north, which is a different place. Guided kayaking and self-guided canoe hire on the upper Noosa river and its Everglades, the hinterland rainforest tours to Maleny and its botanic garden, and surf lessons on the gentle point breaks of First Point and Little Cove complete the list. Bring water, a hat and swimmers, and remember that none of the park's beaches is patrolled.

Visiting Noosa National Park: what you will see

The headland was first reserved in 1879 and has been a national park since 1939, saved more than once by local campaigners from the developers' plans that transformed the rest of the coast; with later additions to the south it covers about 29 square kilometres in four sections, the Headland, Peregian, Emu Mountain and East Weyba, of which the first is the one that people mean. It is a rocky promontory of some 480 hectares, wooded to the water's edge with eucalypt forest, woodland, wallum heath that flowers in late winter and spring, and gullies of vine rainforest with hoop and kauri pines and piccabeen palms. The Coastal Walk runs for 5.4 kilometres from the entrance round the headland to Sunshine Beach, by way of Boiling Pot lookout, Tea Tree Bay, the first and prettiest of the coves, Dolphin Point, where bottlenose dolphins are often seen in the surf, Granite Bay, the Fairy Pools, natural tidal rock basins that social media has made famous, Hell's Gates, a dramatic cleft where the swell surges in and turtles and rays pass below, and the long, wild curve of Alexandria Bay, reached only on foot and with a dangerous rip.

Four inland tracks, the Palm Grove, Tanglewood, Noosa Hill and Alexandria Bay walks, loop back through the forest and are nearly empty. The park is known for its koalas, which sleep in the forks of the eucalypts near the entrance and along the coastal track, where a sightings board is kept; their numbers have fallen, and finding one is now a matter of luck and of noticing a knot of people looking up. Brush turkeys, goannas, black cockatoos, ospreys, sea eagles and the ground parrot in the heath are other residents, and from June to October humpback whales pass close inshore. The point breaks along the headland are a World Surfing Reserve, the home of longboarding in Australia.

Noosa National Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

The park is open at all times, with the information hut at the entrance staffed in the daytime. The climate is subtropical and the park pleasant all year: winter and spring, from June to October, are dry, sunny and mild, with the whales passing and the heath in flower, and are the best months for walking; summer, from December to February, is hot, humid and crowded, with afternoon storms, the water at its warmest and marine stingers a small possibility;

the surf is best from December to April. Go at sunrise, when the path is cool, the car park has spaces, the wildlife is active and the light comes straight up the coast. Allow two to three hours for the Coastal Walk. Hastings Street and Main Beach adjoin the park, the Eumundi markets are twenty minutes inland, and K'gari, formerly Fraser Island, is reached from Rainbow Beach to the north.