Imagine a walk where the views take your breath away, where you can walk seemingly forever and each turn frames a different picture, where art and architecture fuse with nature, and where inviting shady nooks entice you to stop and rest awhile. If it sounds a little too poetic – it’s not.
It is the Caloundra Coastal Walk, a staged program of pathways and boardwalks along the Caloundra Coastline, from the mangrove beauty of Bells Creek at Golden Beach, to the stunning views from cliffs at Point Cartwright.
The Caloundra Coastline is already a natural recreational focus for both residents and visitors to the City. However, while walkway sections have been constructed in some areas in an unplanned manner, the Caloundra Coastal Walk Masterplan, commissioned in 2001, provides a vision for the future – a continuous coastal link which will join the old paths and new paths in a walkway some 25 kilometres in length.
Caloundra City Mayor, Cr Don Aldous, said the Masterplan recognises the community’s visions and ideals.
“Community consultation was vital not only in determining the best fit solution for the pathway route, but also to identify ideas for the physical characteristics of the walkway,” Cr Aldous said. “The results have already proved to be very successful with the first two stages of the Coastal Walk completed and the third stages now underway. The final outcome will be access to the coast, in all its magnificent beauty, for the whole community.”
The all-access Coastal Walk not only provides an exceptional recreational and tourism opportunity for the City’s residents and visitors but, once completed, will also make up the Caloundra section of the proposed Sunshine Coastal Pathway. This initiative of the Sunshine Coast Regional Organisation of Councils (SunROC) is planned to be a world class scenic pathway spanning the spectacular coastlines of the three Sunshine Coast Councils – Caloundra City and Maroochy and Noosa Shires.
