The Sunshine Coast is a coastal region of Australia located in southeastern Queensland, north of the capital of Queensland, Brisbane. It is bordered to the east by surf beaches and the Coral Sea; to the west, the rugged escarpment of the Blackall Range defines the interior margins of the coast. The area was first settled by Papuasians migrating from Northern Australia, and Europeans followed in the 19th century. Andrew Petrie, during his exploration of the coast in 1842, gave the area the name Maroochydore, derived from the word murukutchi-dha in the language of the Aboriginal people of the Brisbane River who accompanied Petrie in her exploration.
It literally means “the place of the red peaks that are the black swans”.Despite all its claims about the region's distinctive character, many of them driven by local media, Sunshine Coast is a very predictable car-based suburb, and its once extensive network of industrial and tourist streetcars is now neglected. Back then, tourism was not yet a concept and the region's main industries were timber and livestock. The southern border of the Sunshine Coast meanders between the Pumicestone Passage marine park, the commercial pine plantations and conical peaks and fruit farms of the Glasshouse Mountains.In the early 20th century, Moreton Mill became a focal point with its network of streetcars across the coast. The newly created Sunshine Coast Regional Council encompasses three estuarine environments on the Mooloolah, Maroochy and Noosa rivers.
By the 1980s, it was becoming one of Australia's fastest-growing regions and one of its most popular tourist destinations.Near the coast of the Sunshine Coast, several groups of independent private housing survive, but in every construction boom since 1980, medium-density apartment blocks have rapidly expanded to these locations. The first Europeans from these coastal lands were convict fugitives who roamed the area during the 1820s and were sometimes adopted by tribes. On beaches such as Shelly Beach, in Caloundra, shell sand was transported on barges to Brisbane to create a mortar for building foundations.The historic character of the Sunshine Coast springs up again from the coast, then from the central corridor and, finally, from the mountain range. Military camps were organized on the outskirts of many municipalities and troops and equipment were moved across the coastal strip in enormous numbers.The Sunshine Coast media and angry residents are quick to attack any proposed skyscraper near the beach.
However, for now, this once paradisiacal region could well deserve to be distinguished as one of Australia's first urbanized regions in which environmental ignorance makes all its destructive force felt.
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