Only one and a half hours drive from Brisbane, the Blackall Range is a great place from which to explore the glorious beaches of the Sunshine Coast, from Caloundra north to Noosa and Fraser Island. It also offers easy access to the unique landscapes of the Mary Valley and more easterly regions.

A brief history of the local area:

For thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, Aboriginal tribes would gather at the place we now call Lake Baroon, a fertile volcanic crater populated by large ancestral Bunya pines. It is now known as Baroon Pocket Dam, a 'pocket' meaning a bend in a waterway. Built in the late 1980's, the dam is the major water supply for a growing Sunshine Coast population. When Baroon filled, it drowned the most significant indigenous cultural heritage site on the Sunshine Coast.

This site was a place where aboriginal tribes celebrated the seasonal bounty of the Bunya tree, Araucaria bidwillii. Every three years or so, when the Bunyas were especially productive, indigenous people would travel up to 250 kilometres to attend the Bunya gatherings at Baroon by invitation from local clans.

Many of the roads we drive along today were once aboriginal pathways through the scrub, usually only about a metre wide and often forming boundaries between different territories.

The Blackall Range area is the traditional home of the Gubbi Gubbi people.

The area was first known as the Bunya-Bunya (or Bon-yi bon-yi) district. The explorer Ludwig Leichhardt described it in 1844 as 'primeval forest'.

In 1842, as the timber-getters started their assault on the tall timbers of the Blackall Range, NSW Governor George Gipps issued a proclamation prohibiting settlement and the cutting down of Bunya trees and other highly sought after timbers, particularly the red cedars, due to their significance to the aboriginal people.

After the State of Queensland was established in 1859, one of the first acts of the new Parliament was to abolish the Bunya Proclamation and open the area up to timber cutting and settlement. Early settlers reported aboriginal families weeping as their ancestral trees were felled. The Blackall Range was surveyed and subsequently named after the then Governor, Sir Samuel Blackall, in 1874. The last Bunya gathering is thought to have been held in the late 1880's.

The virgin forests of the Blackall Range produced magnificent timbers. Clearing proceeded at such a rate that by the late 1800s there were concerns that not enough land was being left for permanent wood production. The hinterland began to open up with the construction of the railway line to Mellum Creek (Landsborough) in 1890. But the economic depression of the 1890s, declining timber prices and a growing demand for agricultural land by the early 1900s led to the end of the timber era and the beginnings of the pastoral history of the Blackall Range.

Small sawmillers operated in many areas until the 1960s. During the 1990s rationalization closed the remaining small mills and the Southeast Queensland Regional Forests Agreement of 1999 will progressively phase out most timber harvesting on Crown lands.

Fortunately, most newcomers to the Range today bring more enlightened attitudes towards caring for the land, with many planting more trees than they cut down.

The scenic beauty of the Blackall Range has long been a magnet for visitors. The first motorcar visited Maleny in 1924, with the area promoted as the 'Blue Mountains of Queensland'. Tourism has been a growing industry ever since and the Range has remained free of large-scale tourism developments. Tourism relies upon the natural attractions of the area, both the conservation reserves and the rural amenity of the green hills for which Maleny has become so well known.

Barung Landcare, Blackall Range Landholders Guide, 2005.

Today the Range is still flanked by large areas of Forest Reserves - the Conondale and Bellthorpe State Forests to the south and west, Walli State Forest to the northwest, Maleny and Mapleton Forest Reserves and Kondalilla National Park to the north, Triunia National Park to the northeast and Crohamhurst State Forest to the south. bamboo retreat itself borders 400 acres of Forest Reserve, which will soon become National Park.

These Blackall Range forests are home to a number of rare and threatened flora and fauna species including the critically endangered Coxens Fig Parrot, the Spotted-tail Quoll, the Glossy Black Cockatoo and the Richmond Birdwing Butterfly, Cascade Treefrog and reptiles such as the Three-toed Snake-tooth Skink.  The Blackall Range also forms the headwaters of the Mary, Stanley, Maroochy and Mooloolah Rivers. 

We invite you to experience the diverse natural beauty of the Blackall Ranges at bamboo retreat.