Sunshine Coast & Australia Zoo

The land and its first people

The National Heritage listing records that the peaks are “central to the creation myths of the region” and were important gathering places, with continuing cultural importance. Queensland Parks describes the area as a special meeting place where many First Nations peoples came together for ceremonies and trade.

Queensland State Archives shares one part of that story: in Jinibara custom, Mount Beerwah is the ancestral mother and Mount Tibrogargan the father, and other peaks are their children. Further north, the lands and waters of Noosa are Kabi Kabi Country.

The nature story

The mountains are intrusive plugs. Molten rock rose inside ancient volcanoes and cooled into hard cores. Over millions of years the softer land around them weathered away, and today the cores rise sharply from the surrounding plains. Beerwah is the tallest at 556 metres, followed by Coonowrin (377 m) and Tibrogargan (364 m).

What you will see

• Glass House Mountains Lookout. A wide view of the peaks rising from the lowlands. A plaque placed here in 2016 marks ten years on the National Heritage List.
• Australia Zoo, Beerwah. Today it covers more than 700 acres, with over 500 staff. This is the home of the Irwin family and of The Crocodile Hunter.
• Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital. It opened in 2004, grew from an old avocado packing shed, and honours Lyn Irwin, a pioneer of wildlife care. Today it rescues, treats and releases more than 7,000 native animals every year.
• Mooloolaba. A beach patrolled all year round and sheltered by the Point Cartwright headland. It is also one of the busiest fishing ports on Australia’s east coast, landing prawns, swordfish and tuna.
• Noosa National Park. First declared in 1939, the park is known for its headland views, including Hell’s Gates. Koalas are often seen along the Noosa Hill walk.

Wildlife and plants to look for

• Humpback whales from Point Cartwright, Alexandra Headland or Dolphin Point in Noosa.
• Koalas in Noosa National Park.
• Crocodiles and other native wildlife at the zoo.
• Rainbow lorikeets and yellow-tailed black-cockatoos in Noosa.
• Hoop and kauri pines, swamp orchids and Christmas bells.

A little history

Sailing north on 17 May 1770, Cook wrote that the peaks’ “singular form of elevation” very much resembled glass houses. The Sunshine Coast Council explains that he was thinking of the glass-making furnaces of Yorkshire.

Steve Irwin was born in Victoria in 1962. His parents, Bob and Lyn Irwin, moved the family to Beerwah and opened the Beerwah Reptile Park in 1970. Lyn nursed orphaned kangaroos in homemade pouches. By the 1980s the park had grown to four acres and been renamed the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park. Steve took over in 1991, married Terri on 4 June 1992, and together they renamed it Australia Zoo. Steve died in an accident while snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef on 4 September 2006. The family story continues with Terri, Bindi (born 1998) and Robert (born 2003).