Why you should visit the ‘other’ Everglades

It was somewhere beyond the last melaleuca tree that I decided the broiling temperatures had finally got the better of me. For the previous couple of hours I’d been strolling uphill, in the humid air of a Queensland afternoon, surrounded by trees, while speckled goannas darted in front of my boots and cicadas hummed with reassuring regularity. Then, suddenly, I appeared to have reached the top of a mountain – but instead of a rock and scrub strewn summit, it was capped by a trio of sand dunes towering up to the sky like a giant awards podium.

“I think the heat is affecting me,” I said to my guide, Vivienne Golding. She smiled knowingly as I stepped towards the dunes and felt my boots immediately sink into the sand. This was definitely real.

If there was one thing I was learning on this three-night excursion to a lesser-visited section of the central east coast of Australia, it was that there are many things in Queensland that even state residents don’t know exist. “There are no everglades in Australia – you mean Florida,” was one response I got. But here in Australia’s “Sunshine State” (Florida bears the same sobriquet) are the only other everglades (large areas of submerged grassland) in the world outside the US. Though smaller than their Florida counterpart (40 miles long, compared to 100 miles), they are just as impressive when it comes to wildlife.

To get there requires a two-hour drive from the Sunshine Coast’s capital to Noosa Heads, a laidback beachside town that lures hipsters, surfers and – judging by the restaurant offerings – vegans. I’d checked in the night before to the light and airy Peppers Noosa Resort & Villas, where rainbow parakeets perched on my balcony, and from there decided to go on a walk that began on the boardwalk in the middle of the city centre at Hastings Street.

Within minutes I was completely alone amid old-growth forest, padding along the Tanglewood trail through pandanus, pine and macaranga trees, listening to the call of bush turkeys while cicadas hummed their dusky chorus. The route took me to the head of a peninsula where I was surrounded on three sides by frothing waves and cavorting sea lions, but with no other people in sight. And all this was classed simply as one of Noosa’s urban strolls.

The following morning I took the 30-minute drive northwards, eager to experience the “official” wilderness of the Everglades. The distinct scent of tea tree filled the air as I arrived at Harry’s Hut campsite to meet Vivienne. A former Olympic white-water canoe champion, 20 years ago she decided to retire, leave the glory of the medals behind and offer kayak trips on Noosa’s Everglades instead.

“You can spend days exploring here. And the great thing is you can make it as wild or as mild as you like,” she explained as we left the river bank, spooling the water with our paddles, creating our own welcome breeze. “Harry’s Hut campsite is good for people who don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere and where other people are usually about, but the further up you go – especially once you pass Camp Three – the more remote you are and it’s just you, and nature.”

We were heading to Camp Three now, from where we would undertake a 7-mile round trip walk, to gain a good overview of the Everglades. What Vivienne didn’t reveal until I reached the top and thought I was suffering heat-induced delusions, is that on the summit is the Cooloola Sandpatch, part of the Great Sandy National Park which also formed the better known K’gari (formerly Fraser Island) that sits just over 30 miles to the north.

The walk began straight from the jetty, where we tied up the kayaks, and followed a winding path through scrubland, forest and nesting birds  (44 per cent of all of the country’s species are found here in the Everglades).

By the time the path levelled out and we emerged onto what appeared to be a towering desert, I could look down and see the whole expanse of the Everglades beneath my feet.

“That’s where we’ll go tomorrow,” explained Vivienne as she pointed out a huge lake cupped by trees and fed by veins of watery channels over 300 feet below.

That afternoon we paddled back along calm water as the sky turned into a cloudy blanket of orange and purple. At the campsite we ate a homemade curry we baked over the camping stove, washed down with some local wine and strawberries freshly picked from a nearby paddock that morning.

Then the next day, rising early, we paddled towards the lake – Cootharaba – we’d seen from the mountaintop. But before then we had to negotiate the narrow channel they call the “River of Mirrors”. Due to tannin-rich waters which appear dark and still, everything that grows above the water is reflected in its surface with tremendous clarity.

Unnerved, I asked Vivienne if she’d ever seen bull sharks in the area; her reply, “not in two decades,” was reassuring, but as something splashed in the water below, I wasn’t sure I’d be brave enough to swim here, as she has done.

Eventually we reached a wide expanse of the lake where a scoop of pelicans preened on a slip of a sandbar, occasionally diving for fish. We watched them for nearly half an hour, practically at eye level. Then as we neared our pick-up point, we were treated to a spectacular finale – a flock of black and white swans took off in a crescendo of monochrome feathers, their calls echoing across the lake.

Essentials

Kanu Kapers Australia offers expert-guided and self-guided kayak and camping trips ranging from one to three days in duration, starting at AUS$110 (£60).

For more info about the Noosa Everglades see queensland.com.