How to read the country

The one-day gradient

If you do only one thing with all of this, make this drive: from Maleny down to the coast at Mooloolaba, reading the gradient as you descend. It's the best classroom on the coast, because it crosses nearly every ecosystem in order, in one short traverse — and because it's far easier to start in the cool of the range and let gravity take you down than to climb.

Start high, in the rainforest of the Blackall Range — Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve is the classic stop, a surviving fragment of the big scrub, cool and dim and dripping on deep red basalt. Then point downhill and watch the reading change beneath you: rainforest thinning into tall eucalypt forest; the trees opening into drier grassy woodland; the slopes flattening onto old floodplain, with its cane, its drains and the occasional lonely forest red gum left standing; the ground turning to sand, with paperbark in the hollows and heath on the rises; and finally the mangroves and open water of the Maroochy mouth, where the tide runs in and out. That's six worlds in one short drive. Do it slowly, stop often, and run the five-minute reading at each change of country.

A reader's tour — where to go

Where to go to meet each kind of country, roughly from the range to the sea. (Always check current access, conditions and park rules before you go; some sites are seasonal or sensitive.)

• A volcanic plug, up close. The Glass House Mountains are the grand set piece, with lookouts at their feet and tracks on several peaks — but Mount Coolum, Mount Tinbeerwah and Mount Ninderry all teach the same lesson on a gentler scale: hard rhyolite or trachyte standing where softer country has worn away.
• Rainforest. Mary Cairncross and the reserves of the Blackall Range (Maleny–Montville–Mapleton), and the gully and waterfall walks at Kondalilla and Mapleton, where streams saw down through the basalt cap.
• Eucalypt forest and woodland. The foothill and range reserves throughout the hinterland; almost any patch of open, straight-trunked gum forest over grass. Look for hollow-bearing old trees, and listen for the glossy black-cockatoo where she-oaks grow.
• Wallum and dunes. Noosa National Park and, above all, the Cooloola section of Great Sandy National Park — the science's home ground: bleached sand, spring wildflowers, perched lakes such as Lake Poona, and the Noosa Everglades of the upper Noosa River, blackwater made visible.
• Paperbark swamp and freshwater wetland. The Maroochy floodplain wetlands and reserves; melaleuca stands in any low, wet hollow. The restored Yandina Creek Wetland is a fine, accessible example of country brought back.
• Estuary, mangrove and saltmarsh. The mangrove boardwalk at the Maroochy Wetlands Sanctuary, Bli Bli, and the long sheltered Pumicestone Passage behind Bribie Island — best read at low tide, when the zones from seagrass to mangrove to saltmarsh lie open.
• Sea country. The headlands of Noosa and Point Cartwright for the offshore view, the reefs off Mooloolaba and around Mudjimba Island for the two-oceans overlap, the Pumicestone Passage for seagrass, and, in season, the whales offshore.

Before you go: stay safe

Beautiful country, and parts of it are dangerous to the unprepared.

• Heat, sun and water. Summers here are hot and humid. Carry more water than you think you need, cover up, and stay off exposed walks in the middle of the day — most tracks have no drinking water.
• The peaks are real climbs. Several of the Glass House Mountains are steep, exposed scrambles that have cost lives, and some routes are closed or restricted. Check the current status, respect the grading, and turn back in the wet, when the rock grows treacherous.
• Snakes and ticks. This is snake country — the eastern brown and red-bellied black among them. Watch where you put your feet, leave any snake alone, and learn pressure-immobilisation first aid. Paralysis ticks are common in the moist forest; check yourself afterwards.
• Water and tides. Surf beaches have rips; the estuaries, sandflats and Pumicestone Passage run on the tide; and the Cooloola and Noosa North Shore sand tracks are four-wheel-drive only and strand the unwary on a rising tide. Read the tide before you head onto a flat or a sand track.
• Tell someone, and don't count on a phone. Much of the hinterland and sand country has no mobile signal. Leave word of where you're going and when you'll be back.
• Check before you go. Access, closures, fire and flood conditions and seasonal restrictions all change. Confirm them with Queensland Parks and Wildlife or the local council before you leave, rather than trusting any printed guide — this one included.

Tread lightly

Once you can read a landscape, you tend to want to keep it in one piece.

• Keep to the tracks and stay off bare dunes; the foredune pioneers hold the whole coast together and are easily killed by trampling and wheels.
• Don't foul the water. The acid wallum and its frogs are undone by anything that sweetens or pollutes them. Clean your boots and gear between wetlands, so you don't carry weeds and disease from one to the next.
• Leave plants, animals and rocks where they are; a wildflower left standing makes next year's seed.
• Keep dogs out of wildlife habitat, drive carefully through bush at night, give nests, roosts and hauled-out animals a wide berth, and never handle bats.
• Respect cultural sites: much of this landscape holds places of deep significance to the Kabi Kabi people. Treat all sites and any access restrictions with respect.