With more than 21 years' experience at the Daily, Erle Levey is dedicated to presenting a fair and accurate overview of the Sunshine Coast property market. Having been through the busts and
the booms, he has the benefit of hindsight - and an unshakeable belief in the future of
the region. Times, they are a-changin'
| Erle Levey
Change, love it or loathe it, is all around us. Just look at the property market here on the Sunshine Coast.
Scanning a heap of old photographs on to computer recently made me acutely aware of how much the place has changed since the ’60s and ’70s.
Some of the photos were holiday snaps of our first surf trip up to the Sunshine Coast. It was a time before the coast road connected Caloundra, Maroochydore, Coolum and Noosa.
You had to drive back out to the Bruce Highway and then in to the next spot. There was the old wooden signpost at Eumundi that pointed to Noosa. It is as vivid in my memory today as it was then.
We had enjoyed good surf all the way up the coast – Crescent Head, Angourie, Byron Bay, Coolangatta, Burleigh Heads and then at the legendary Noosa with its warm, tubing point breaks.
We arrived there about 4.30 in the afternoon. The surf was about a metre at Johnsons – a break between National Park and First Point. A yacht was at anchor 100 metres away.
We surfed until the sun set behind its masts and spas. In the background was the sound of cicadas singing.
That night we had a few beers in the new Noosa Heads Hotel, a red brick building on the slopes of Laguna Hill with a magical view over Laguna Bay and up the North Shore as far as Double Island Point.
There were more people behind the bar than customers. We bedded down that night in the panel van, lulled to sleep by the crack of the waves and the promise of even more the next day.
The next time I saw Noosa was in the ’70s and the place had changed. Noosa Sound had been created and we laughed when we went down to Kawana and were told that people would pay $20,000 for a handkerchief-sized block of land created out of reclaimed swamp.
This was at a time when you could buy a complete sugarcane farm at Nambour for $40,000.
The Maroochy Sands was the first high-rise. And the Boolarong, where the Grand Palais now stands at Alexandra Headland, was the first resort. Surfair stood alone near the old Maroochy Airport with its hanger-like terminal.
In the early ’80s we saw the start of environmental awareness with the launch of the Mountain Creek estate at Mooloolaba. Units in the newly completed Banyandah Towers were priced from just $85,000, Mariner Point at Point Cartwright had apartments on offer from $180,000.
One of the biggest changes I can remember in the property market was something that seems insignificant now. It was when Aerodrome Road at Maroochydore and Mary Street in Noosaville had kerb and channelling put in and the roads were fully sealed. To me, it showed that we had grown up.
How times have changed. The cane industry has all but collapsed on the Sunshine Coast and Kawana waterfront land is in the $1 million-plus category.
If only we had paid more attention to the value of property back then ...
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My family used to come up here for holidays from Sydney during the 1960s to visit my grandfather at Tewantin and other relatives in the area.
I can still recall various local features which have faded away or disappeared since then, such as:
The winding dirt road from a Eumundi without the markets to Noosaville which passed the old drive-in theatre (where the Good Shepherd Lutheran College is now) and the Wallace estate farm (where Noosa Leisure Centre, Library and Arts & Crafts Centre are now);
The old-fishing co-op along Noosa River between Hilton and Gympie Terraces;
The old swimming baths and the riverside camping area at Tewantin which are now the sites of Noosa Marina and Noosa council chambers;
The House of Bottles in Tewantin;
The beergarden at the Royal Mail Hotel - this was a novelty to kids from NSW who weren't allowed into beergardens;
The original fibro hall of the Tewantin RSL - there were no poker machines allowed in Qld;
The winding road down the side of the road from Cooroy to Tewantin and a massive figtree facing one of the hairpin bends;
The riverside camping area at the western end of Hastings Street before the Noosa Spit was built;
The hours that it used to take getting up here from Brisbane via the old Bruce Highway (now Steve Irwin way);
Having to go to the only vet in Noosa Shire at Cooroy when our pet dog was run over and had its pelvis broken during summer holidays in 1969 - the vet also happened to be the chairman of Noosa Shire from 1964 until he died in office in 1980;
The mangroves of Hays Island and the Noosa River estuary (where Noosa Island is now);
The wallum forest where Noosa Waters is now;
The original Davo's bait and tackle shop come general store on the corner of James St and Gympie Terrace, Noosaville (where CJ's on the River restaurant is now);
Hardly anybody travelled to Fraser Island in those days (apart from timber loggers and sandmining crews) and only small numbers went to the Teewah Coloured Sand for around $3 for a day trip!
The old guesthouses, caravan parks and camping areas around Hastings Street, Weyba Road, Tewantin and Noosaville. Only Halse Lodge survives as a backpackers and Munna Point with Noosa River Caravan Park.
Probably more people lived in the dairy and timber towns of Cooroy and Pomona and the hinterland than on the Noosa coast up until the population growth accelerated in the 1970s.
Also not to be forgotten - Thunder Egg Farm, Betty's Burgers and The Jetty Restaurant on the waterfront at Boreen Point.