About Noosa Heads
NOOSA BEACH - when you catch the first wave
Noosa Heads is a suburb located in the Noosa Shire local government area of Sunshine Coast, Queensland. One may ask - why do we all love living here? A variety of reasons, some retire, families have more to do, or quite simply stated, we call it paradise!
When you live in paradise you must be prepared to defend it. Well before sustainable development became a catchphrase, the Noosa community fought to protect an environment that local surfer and author Mike Davis describes as “the place where God kissed the planet”. The community has weathered attempts to carve up Noosa National Park with roads and sand mines; it’s prevented high-rise buildings in Hastings Street, and fought off efforts to put a Club Med on Noosa Spit (now protected public parkland). When Main Beach started to disappear due to erosion caused by a 1970s development blunder that saw the entire river mouth artificially relocated, a pumping system was installed to routinely replenish the sand. Noosa is a survivor.
The best thing to come out of the hard years is that Noosa has reinvented itself. It’s still not cheap, but it has morphed into a kinder, gentler, more welcoming place. It is still strongly opinionated about its future and where it’s going to go, hence the fight we had for the de-amalgamation. Some people think that’s elitist — most people just think it’s protecting this priceless jewel that we all share and love.
Whether you have money or not, you can still go out in Noosa National Park and hit the first break there and be in heaven. Retailers have moved in, along with accommodation like the refurbished 10 Hastings Street Boutique Motel & Café. Old-school Italian joint Lindoni’s Ristorante, a 26-year-old Noosa institution where Mick Jagger once dined, packed up its giant emblematic drip candle and owner Rio Capurso teamed with Brent Ogilvie to open a sultry, ultra-modern incarnation called Locale at the far end of the street. Betty’s Burgers, an on-trend burger shack which exhorts diners to upload photos of their meal to social media, in a prime Hastings Street spot that had sat vacant for three years. It was immediately packed with holiday-makers. There’s been a massive swing towards more casual dining where it’s a younger scene here now — a lot of people were saying how great it is to come in off the beach and sit on the couch in their bathers.
The clacky-heeled socialites skewered by Prue and Trude, the snobbish alter egos of TV’s Kath & Kim, as being the type to holiday in “Noorrsa” in its late 1990s heyday have been replaced. The mood is more relaxed: organic is pushing gourmet off the shelves, “social dining” is the new buzz phrase and there’s a focus on fun-not-formal street food.
If you would like a detailed report on Noosa Heads, please email us.
