Noosa is in Queensland, Australia, on the aptly named Sunshine Coast. If you can ignore the bizarre Queensland politics this is a good thing. Noosa exists in its own Biosphere Reserve (recognized by UNESCO) which was created so the good people of the shire (yes a shire just like the hobbits) can protect their environment and live a sustainable life. To reinforce its individuality, Noosa also  de-amalgamated itself from the existing political structure to enable self-rule. Yes, Noosa is a bit different – it has decided to go its own way and bugger everyone else. This is a wonderful thing and may make Noosa the single best place to live in the known universe. Let’s see why.

A Brief Description

Noosa is mainly two places – a beach place and a river place. The total population is about 50k and is capped at that level. To live in Noosa you pretty much have to wait for someone to move out. There are also 2.2m tourists a year so as a visitor you will have plenty of company.

The Beach Place

This is called Noosa Heads and is basically a peninsula with an ocean on one side, a river on the other and parks at either end. The beach is the best in Australia and has many low-rise expensive apartments looking out upon it.  The peninsula has a street running down the middle lined with restaurants and boutiques. The rich people stay here.

 

The River Place

This is called Noosaville and is focused on the river and on man-made canals lined with expensive houses. It also has a lake. Noosaville is not a cheap alternative to Noosa Heads but has a more casual atmosphere. It also has many restaurants and shops, some of which are not boutiques. The less rich people stay here.
In between heads and ville there are canals, beaches, parks and many resorts.

So whats the big deal? Noosa is attractive but so are lots of other places, why is it better?
Well, because it combines the best bits of what most of us want in a place, together with quirky stuff that raises it above the common horde.

The Best Bits

Parks

Parks are common – big, small, national, beach, river, island, they are everywhere. Trees are more prominent than buildings and wild life has the right of way.  One park deserves special attention – Noosa National Park. This sits at the end of boutique street at Noosa Heads. It is beautiful, has many beaches, many surfers and whales cruising past. There are many excellent tracks through the forest and along the coast, plus there are koalas in residence.

Buildings

When every other tourist destination was going high rise, Noosa said no to anything over 4 levels. And it’s expected they are covered with trees or whatever else can grow on them. Noosa became home to the invisible building. This, together with a vast network of paths and access-ways, means the urban area is built to a human scale.

Climate

Kind of perfect. It doesn’t get too cold or too hot, it rains enough but not that much, it does not get overly windy and the sun shines most of the time.

Water

There is lots of this. You have the river which you can boat and fish on and visit everglades just like Florida. There are lakes you can do lake stuff on. Probably the most significant watery thing though is the ocean. There is lots of this and it comes with whales, dolphins and many other fishy things. It also has numerous beaches and islands to visit and lounge about on.

The Quirky Stuff

Noosa Pace

You know when your read all the tourist crap about how when you arrive at some location, time slows down and you just relax into a holiday stupor, like this is every travellers dream. The way the world used to be (before all these bloody tourists arrived). Well, Noosa  has that vibe, you just know stuff sort of moves into slow motion mode. This dosen’t mean things don’t happen, just that they happen in a more relaxed way.

Roundabouts

The good people of Noosa decided traffic lights are a tool of the devil and so do not have them. They have roundabouts. So many roundabouts they are uncounted. Many roads can go into a roundabout and these roads can have many lanes. Some roads go nowhere, some go somewhere, some lanes make you go right, some left and some straight through. There are also some road signs, some have a name on them, most just say “all other destinations”. There are no standard roundabouts thus no standard rules, it’s a free-for-all and great fun for motorists. Since you rarely know where you are going, you see a lot of Noosa! If Noosa was a less wonderful place this could be a problem.

Rubbish Bins

There are many of these, they are very big, they are emptied and clean. Because of this Noosa is generally free of stuff on the ground that should not be there.

Picnic Tables

They are everywhere a picnic table needs to be, clean, well-maintained, some in  shade houses, some with barbecues adjacent, most have people attached.

Noosa

Any one reading the above could easily say –  big deal I’ve been lots of places that have that stuff.. so what the? The what the is that it all works and the Noosians really care about their place. The rubbish bins get emptied all the time, the public areas are cared for every day, the picnic tables are actually clean and don’t fall apart when you sit down. Everything works to the best of the locals’ ability to make it so.

The beauty of the location, the epic climate, the absolute protection given to the environment and people who seem to really care.

Noosa – Just Relax – It’s The Biosphere Baby

The trip to Paihia is the same as the trip to Kerikeri, so if you have an interest in this aspect of the journey please read my post ‘Auckland to Kerikeri’. The variation is that Paihia is on the Pacific coast about 20 km east of Kerikeri.
Paihia is like Kerikeri’s evil twin, it’s where you go looking for a good time. It is also a place with a split personality, one side is cultural history, the other is cultural hedonism.
History
Paihia is sited in the Bay of Islands, a stunningly attractive coastal area with many islands.

At one time it also had whales. Unfortunately for the whales they also made good oil. During the eighteenth century lots of people turned up to hunt them. These people were not known for their social niceties. Their degenerate behavior also attracted missionaries, who tried to alter their behavior. It didn’t work, but the whalers soon ran out of whales so went somewhere else. The missionaries stayed and developed a reasonably amicable relationship with the Maori people who owned the land. The British Government of the time decided that New Zealand was worth having as a colony. They sent out a guy called Hobson who together with the missionaries negotiated with the Maori chiefs to transfer their land to Britain in return for having the rights of British Subjects. The importance of this to Paihia is that the treaty between Maori and the British was signed at Waitangi, which is a suburb of Paihia. This makes Paihia the cradle of civilisation for Europeans in New Zealand. Maori already had a perfectly good civilisation and clearly did not understand that British Subjects had crap all rights. Thus the treaty ended up as the usual colonial land grab. Maori understood this pretty quickly and various wars were fought and lost. Needless to say Waitangi is a focus of Maori discontent over European conquest.
Not withstanding the above Waitangi is a delightful place with a great museum, nice bush areas, golf course and hardly any whalers.
Hedonism
Paihia was the place to go, then it wasn’t, then it was, then it wasn’t and currently it is on the rise again. It’s varying popularity is evidenced by a weird collection of hotels and motels whose architecture reflects the worse aspects of what was trendy during the up periods. This makes it kind of interesting. The glorious location makes this a magnet for two distinct groups of people, rich ones and backpackers.

The rich ones arrive on boats and helicopters and fish for marlin. Not a particularly interesting group unless you are part of it. The key to Paihias vibe is the back packer crowd. This is a very large demographic easily outnumbering all other visitors and probably residents as well. The backpacker enclave is a site to behold, a couple of streets filled with converted motels, hotels, and other undefinable structures, interspersed with bars, restaurants and clubs.

If you want to practice your language skills this is the place to be, just make sure its early in the day when people are reasonably coherent. Backpackers travel in a variety of ways, but the most popular methods are camper vans and old cars. When in Paihia you will notice these clustered in car parks like gypsy encampments. When leaving Paihia you will be in a very long line of traffic, at the front will be a camper or car full of backpackers going 70km at full throttle. This is not so much of a problem as it may seem because you will have lots of time to enjoy the fantastic Bay of Islands scenery.