Sunshine coasting in Noosa

By JOHN ARMSTRONG

So much for warnings about carrying explosive objects on to aircraft. The ticket said nothing about 2-year-old children - the human equivalent of Semtex and capable of causing as much chaos in a confined space.

We tried to forget a friend's horror story of a Mt Pinutabo-style tantrum which erupted from her toddler on the one-hour Auckland-to-Wellington flight. What havoc might be wreaked by our own pocket battleship during the three-and-a-half hour stretch to Brisbane?

Our escape to Noosa, however, had us checking in at the hard-to-comprehend-anything hour of 4.40 am for a 6.05 am takeoff. It was too early to worry whether we had organised someone to turn off the cat or feed the gas - and quite possible to have arrived at the airport having forgotten the child.

Unfortunately, it was also a wee bit early to assail the in-flight drinks' trolley and slip into an alcohol-induced reverie to persuade oneself that the creature smearing butter over the upholstery from his otherwise untouched children's meal belonged to someone else.

True, airlines provide puzzles, colouring books and other distractions for kids these days. Which still left the question of how to occupy him for the remaining three hours and 20 minutes.

In that time the plane cruised to somewhere near 9000m; the toddler climbed a few hundred metres more as he repeatedly clambered from cabin floor to the top of his seat. His final triumph in this war of nerves was to fall into deep slumber just minutes before we came in to land - a feat he repeated with clockwork precision on the return flight, despite his supposedly wised-up father chasing him around the departure lounge in a futile pre-takeoff attempt to burn off surplus fuel.

Never mind. We were in Brisbane by breakfast. All we had to do was pick up the rental car and we would be in Noosa before you could say "Thomas the Tank Engine."

Finding the right exit for the Bruce Highway ("You look like someone who's lost, mate,"observed the chap at the petrol station. Queenslanders don't waste much time coming to the point) we made the 160km dash north.

Shortly after 11 o'clock we were standing in the sun on the gravel drive outside Des Hinch's Villa Alba retreat in the Noosa Valley, where we spent two restful nights before heading into town to stay at the French Quarter Resort.

Most of Saturday was still ahead of us - and a week of crystal-clear days to come as temperatures relentlessly hit the low to mid-20s. This is a Sunshine Coast which lives up to its name. Noosa covers three localities: inland Noosa Valley, Noosaville, which is stripped along the Noosa River; and Noosa Heads, a spit of land between the estuary and Noosa National Park, occupied by million-dollar apartments, fashion boutiques, street-front restaurants, waving palms and, of course, an expanse of hard-to-beat beach. ("A big sandpit" was the 2-year-old's accurate assessment.)

Battling hard for its share of Queensland's $8 billion tourism industry, Noosa eschews the brash, razzmatazz fun-park image of the Gold Coast, promoting itself as a low-key, family-friendly escape, where people can really relax and explore the bountiful attractions of the Sunshine Coast.

Noosa-ites joke that those working in the Gold Coast's tourism industry come north to Noosa for a holiday. The one-upmanship is obvious. At weekends, particularly after Sunday brunch, Noosa's upmarket Hastings St becomes a catwalk as promenading couples indulge in pavement displays of their buying power.

I came across two middle-aged males loudly debating the merits of the white leather upholstery in the latest-model Alfa Romeo saloon.

But the combination of cash - Noosa is a retirement haven for some of Australia's most well-heeled - and a national park on its doorstep has saved Noosa from the usual tourism-inflicted blight that afflicts so many coastal resorts.

A short drive south down the coast past Coolum towards Maroochydore bears witness to how haphazard high-rise development can so quickly blot the landscape.

Nothing tacky is allowed to take hold in Noosa, thank you very much. The locality can rightly proclaim something of a triumph in town planning. No building is allowed to go above four storeys. Noosa Spit was apparently saved from being turned into a Club Med. There are no traffic lights (just roundabouts). There is little neon. Few nightclubs pump out music into the early hours. We were bombarded by only one thumping car stereo during our 10 days. McDonald's and KFC appear to have been banished to the shopping malls.

Noosa prides itself on being something of a Malibu (or St Tropez, as one local website immodestly proclaims). Noosa IS kind of southern California - a culture Bill Bryson recently described as "vapid." But, hey, we all need a bit of that now and then.

* John Armstrong travelled to Noosa courtesy of Tourism Queensland, staying at Villa Alba, near Doonan, and the French Quarter Resort.