noosa-heads

                                                                                                                                     29
6.12                   NOOSA WOODS
LOCATION                      Hastings Street, Noosa Heads

TENURE                        Reserve. 114MCH839107

DATES                         1880

DESCRIPTION                   A large wooded picnic & recreation area at the mouth of the Noosa River at the western
                              end of Hastings Street.




This photo of Hastings Street (believed to be the late 1960's) shows the area before the extension of Noosa Spit and the construction of
                                                     Noosa Sound in the early 1970's.

6.12.1       BRIEF HISTORY
When the sand spit that became Hastings Street was surveyed in 187972 nine acres (just under four hectares) of heavily
wooded land at the western end, near the Noosa river mouth, were left unsurveyed for future public reserve. The Widgee
Divisional Board who had responsibility for the sand spit declared that no land would be alienated from the Crown on the
Reserve.73
The nine acres (3.64 hectares) evolved as an unproclaimed reserve for public purposes, and was a popular landing
place, a picnic ground, and fishing spot.74 In the mid-1880s Walter Hay was appointed lighthouse keeper and pilot for the
Port of Noosa. The Noosa Bar had a reputation as a treacherous entrance, and Hay’s duties included placing beacons
and lights on the sandbank at the river mouth and on Hay’s Island, and to piloting larger steamships into and up the
Noosa River. ‘He was succeeded in this job by his son Percy, from his second marriage, and a great nephew, George.’ 75




72
     Department of Natural Resources, Survey Map, Cat. No. N218.1.
73
     Minutes, Widgee Divisional Board, 3 September 1881.
74
  Rosalind Butler, ‘Hastings Street, village of Noosa The Development of the sand spit’, thesis Postgraduate Diploma in Arts (History),
University of Queensland, 1998, p. 42.
75
     Rosalind Butler, ‘In the wake of Walter Hay, Father of Noosa a History Trail’, unpublished, p. 7.