Words and photos by Epic Rider Alan Grant





Alas, the weatherman got it right. I awoke at 6am to a wet and windy April morning in the holiday town of Noosaville, 160km north of the Queensland capital Brisbane. To make matters worse the thermometer showed 13 degrees Celsius and for an exiled Scotsman who has lived most of the past 20 years in the tropics, the idea of venturing out in this wasn’t appealing at all. But this was to be my last spin during a five-day trip to visit family and I had saved the best ride till last – a trip down the scenic Sunshine Coast to Maroochydore and back.


So I swallowed an extra teaspoon of cement, put my Neil Pryde gilet over two layers, rolled my Alize down the driveway and pretended I was a Belgian hardman going out for day on the bergs.


The chip-sealed roads of the Sunshine Coast are great, if not as smooth as the surfaces I’m used to in Singapore, and nearly all have a fairly wide bike lane. Add in the fact that the local motorists tend to have quite a relaxed attitude to cyclists and it’s easy to see why so many professional triathletes and cyclists are drawn to Noosa and the surrounding area to use as an off-season base.



The Pacific provides the backdrop for most of the ride


I took the back road from Noosaville over the mangroves to the town of Sunshine Beach, where the previous day I had put in a hill intervals session on the short but very sharp Belmore Terrace. Today I bypassed Sunshine and headed south on the David Low Highway. Here begins what must be one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the world. To the left the sight, smell and sound of the Pacific Ocean is a constant companion as the road rolls up and down for 15 km passing through the towns of Marcus Beach, Peregine Beach and Coolum Beach. To the right eucalyptus trees stand amid the sand dunes, emitting occasional whiffs of their soothing medicinal scent. I was a happy man, despite the intermittent rain and the driving wind in my face. I was just hoping it wouldn’t change direction for the return home, which it had done to me before.



An all but empty Coolum Beach


Coolum Beach is more developed than Marcus and Peregine and so with it, I encountered my first set of traffic lights. I welcomed the brief stop, though, as it allowed me a real look at the swell pounding the long white beach. Coolum has a famous surfing break and I could see some wetsuited diehards out there on their boards waiting patiently for the perfect waves.


A nice little slope took me up and out of Coolum and the first sight of the eerie Mount Coolum. Not particularly high at 208 metres, this dormant volcano nonetheless dominates the surroundings, the boss in an otherwise flat terrain. It begs out to be climbed but alas there is no road and so hikers are the only athletes to have claimed its scalp. Maybe a heavily geared mountain bike would do the trick.



There’s no missing Mt Coolum


The mountain was still visible as I entered the town of Marcoola, a pretty soulless place with motels on one side of the road and strip malls on the other. It has another facet to it, however, just take any one of the slip roads to the left and down towards the ocean to discover beautiful beaches and streets with rustic charm.


I have another memory of Marcoola. A few years back I punctured here with only a Pitstop inflator in my back pocket. It failed and I had to make the fateful call to my wife still tucked up in bed 30km away. In good times and bad …


In fact I’ve had quite a few flats in Queensland over the years. When it’s wet, and it had more or less been raining since December in these parts, the bike lanes tend to be liberally sprinkled with potential puncture material so I’d recommend a slightly sturdier choice of tyre. I got lucky on this ride.


It started to bucket down as the highway passed the Sunshine Coast Airport runway and then veered inland past Mudjimba. I caught up to another cyclist, the first I’d seen that morning. He’d been out since 5am and was now nearly home. Seems I’d dodged a bullet as he reckoned it was even stormier in the predawn darkness.


The town names in this part of the world mostly come from the local Aboriginal languages and my particular favourites are the next two I passed through, Bli Bli and Diddilibah. Watch out for the magpies that patrol the fields of crops that mark the entrance to the former. Every time I’ve ridden here they’ve swooped down to attack like divebombers and today was no exception. Safety comes with a bridge that crosses the Maroochy River.



The clouds part for a view over the Maroochy River


After Bli Bli, the road swings down and back towards the ocean and follows the wide, slow moving river into Maroochydore, the commercial centre of the Sunshine Coast. The outskirts of town marked the u-turn of my journey and joggers were out enjoying the morning as the rain had stopped temporarily.


I’d cycled some 45km and was looking forward to getting back for a piping hot mug of tea and endless rounds of toast for breakfast. The rain came and went but the wind stayed in my favour all the way up the coast, which made the rollers from Coolum to Sunshine Beach almost easy.



The return leg reveals a waterfall on Mt Coolum


At Sunshine I kept straight instead of turning left back to Noosaville then through Noosa Junction and up and down Noosa Hill to sweep into Noosa Heads, which has been described as the “Cannes of Queensland”. While not quite as grand as it sounds, the main thoroughfare of Hastings Street really is one of those places to sit and be seen. I rolled through it slowly as I was heading for Noosa Woods and the Spit, where the Noosa River finishes its journey.





The combination of wind, waves and currents where the river meets the Pacific make this a haven for anglers, runners, walkers and surfers of all descriptions – standup paddleboarders, wind surfers and kite surfers all have their patches alongside the traditionalists. I had to stop to take in the view of this special place before the short ride home. I’m still not a fan of riding in the “cold” but I was glad I hauled my soft Scottish self out of bed to once again enjoy this glorious outing.


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