Looking out the window over the Noosa River, awaiting my interview with Mayor Barry Goodenough, I was impressed at how successful the oyster hatcheries had become. Back in the day, it was prophesised that the river would never support them. But, now that the world famous Noosa River oysters were a gourmet item in restaurants from Melbourne to New York, the naysayers have been quiet. Of course, as the mayor is on the record as saying, “now that tourism has tanked, lucky are we to have them”.
Snapping out of this reflection, I was ushered into the Mayor’s office. The avuncular incumbent, now in his sixth term, and continuing the tradition of long-serving mayors, was eager to promote his shire’s new attributes. I was wondering how he was going to explain Noosa’s new state. A previous mayor had called a Climate Emergency, but governments failed to act, and coastal councils everywhere were now in adaptation mode. I had to admit to the mayor that Noosa was doing relatively well in these stakes. “Actually”, Mayor Barry confided, “we’ve saved millions annually by terminating our subsidy to The local tourism body”. This was, basically, a confession that marketing of popular natural destinations was counter productive. Since South East Queensland was now choc-a-bloc with new housing estates, people flocked to one of the new remaining scenic and classy towns on the Sunshine Coast. Barry lamented the failure of the famous Noosa Boom Gates to keep the visitor levels sustainable, and the number plate recognition scheme was a flop once people worked out how easily it could be gamed. Again, the national media outlets had a field day. “Nothing will stop people coming to a place with so much natural beauty”, noted Barry, and while he regretted the dislocation to suburban communities, Airbnb application fees and a high-value rate base was, “keeping the joint ticking over”.
Since sea levels had risen faster than all predictions, Laguna Bay extended inland. Hastings Canal, once the famous Hastings Street, has developed a reputation as a wedding site, the gondoliers ply their trade to the new, raised Woods Marriage Precinct where a dozen ceremonies could be found on any day. The canal still had some shops on the first level of the buildings, and accommodation houses had adapted to rooms on upper levels. Of course, as with most of the shire, Airbnb let’s were predominant, and I was keen to ask the mayor whether he thought his long-term support for the extension of short-term letting was the right thing. “I’d say so”, he opined, “certainly real estate values have clawed some of their way back, although I do regret that most tourism workers travel to and from Gympie daily because local accommodation rents rose faster than the low rates of pay.”
The mayor was in a good mood. He had opened the Noosa River Dyke just a few months previously, and the impounded river, along with its valuable primary industry, was more or less protected from the storm surges. The river, once a conduit to tours to the Everglades, now known as the Neverglades due to the virtual disappearance of the mangroves, was quiet these days. All worry about shore-bank erosion had disappeared, and the houseboats were long gone, their places taken by the more valuable oyster industry leases.
Mayor Barry mused about the new nature of tourism. Once the Relaxation Capital of Australia, Noosa was now the Adventure Capital of Australia. Backpackers and day visitors are the mainstay visitors, since the ever-elusive high- value visitor had moved on to other (higher) destinations. “Nothing to see or do here” was the most common post on travel social media.
The main attraction is the iconic Adventure Boardwalk, a ratepayer funded extension of the original, now raised and following the coastline of the newly named Noosa Adventure National Park. Basically, intrepid visitors are harnessed up to the rail as they attempt to dodge the crashing waves on their way to famed Boiling Over Pot lookout. Old timers remember koalas in the park, but domestic dogs had ended their habitation long ago. A-Bay remains popular with nudists, who have adapted to lounging in the treetops as the beach is, alas, no more. A recent episode of Bachelorette was filmed here, but since councillors are no longer a feature of the long-running show, there’s little local interest.
Switching to the controversial topic of female representation on the council, Mayor Barry seemed keen to put a good spin on the lack of new female candidates since the newly beatified ex-councillor, Saint Sigrid, resigned from the fray 20 years ago. “It’s really just a bloke’s job”, he mansplained, “I mean, it’s mostly big picture stuff, and Sigrid’s attention to detail not only sent our meetings into extra time, the increase in video views just did not translate to a viable alternative governance model”. With this pearl of wisdom, he excused himself. “They’ve finally found a koala in the new Ringtail Creek National Park, and we have a major media shindig on. Great publicity for the shire”, he chuckled.
With accommodations centred on Noosa Junction, and nearby Gympie Terrace Wetlands, and high-rise car-parks accommodating the ever increasing number of day visitors, the town’s relaxed, laid-back atmosphere has been tragically altered. For instance, very few permanent residents remain in the tourist hotspots, and most of the shire administration and services are centred on nearby Cooroy, the de facto capital of the shire. Accessed by a new four-lane highway, and with houses stretching all the way eastward to Tinbeerwah, the new city is powering on. Newly relocated businesses occupy the light industrial zones north of the city to Pomona. The new CBD is set over requisitioned land above the railway line. The council tower dominates the skyline, but the nearby NPA head office, a sustainably built stone and timber building, does not go unnoticed. The late Sir Michael Foster is remembered by a bronze statue, while the NPA is now capably managed by their ex Secretary, Saint Sigrid.
Since the hugely popular Hinterland Adventure Playground consumed the old CBD, Cooroy has changed dramatically, and not for the better. Eager businesses assumed visitors to the Playground would park at a distance in the multi-story car parks but, of course, they parked in the Main Street, dislocating the mixed nature of this once vibrant rural town to the point where shopping options rival Montville in the sheer number of shops that really don’t serve the local community. The old IGA is now a hugely popular ice-skating rink, and Scone Time is held in the lovely Pomona Hall, since the Cooroy Memorial Hall became the Cooroy Memorial Mall. The Tinbeerwah Aldi does a roaring trade.
As with the coast, locals bemoan the new normal, but the town’s historic past is now featured in a sound and light show running Tuesday and Thursday evenings. The two congested town intersections are still a talking point, but with businesses winning the argument for traffic lights, most of the town’s fabric is long gone, and queues of cars crawl bumper to bumper into town.
To find out where the locals have moved, I took the scenic trip northward to Kin Kin. Here, I found a thriving, sustainable community, attuned to the natural rhythms of life, and high and dry. Unaffected by the travails of the coast, and the totally distorted life of the new Cooroy, many had made a new life here. Herein lies a story for another day.
