We first discovered Montville when we lived briefly in Queensland two decades ago, but it was only one stop on a road trip which didn’t really do it justice. Some years later we returned when friends from the UK were staying in a house there. We stayed with them for a few days and realised that our earlier visit had not been long enough to see how much the village has to offer. (Montville is actually a small rural town but people like to call it a village, evoking as it does an image of bucolic tranquility.)
Montville is situated in the Sunshine Coast hinterland on the Blackall Mountain Range, about 400 metres (1,300 ft) above sea level. The Sunshine Coast starts about one hour north of Brisbane, the Queensland state capital, and stretches along 60 kilometres of Pacific Ocean coastline from Pelican Waters in the south to Tewantin in the north. The Sunshine Coast area also extends west to encompass a number of national parks in the rainforest hinterland. This is where Montville is located, close to Kondalilla National Park.
Settlement first occurred in Montville in the late 1880s. The settlers soon discovered that the land in this area is particularly suited to fruit orchards and plantations. They grew oranges, lemons, pineapples, bananas and strawberries, among other crops, supplying much of the sunshine coast region with their produce and generating substantial income for themselves.
Before then the area had been extensively logged and the escarpment is still dotted with timber chutes, used for sliding logs down the mountain to be hauled away to local sawmills. The logs were stripped of their bark and made slippery with sap before being slid down the chute.
One such facility was Lander’s Chute, named after Edmund Lander, who leased the land in 1861 and was one of the pioneers of timber harvesting along the Blackall Range. The area has since grown into a small rural community of about 300 people known as Landers Shoot.
Among the first settlers were the Smith brothers, Henry, Edward and Alfred. In the 1890s, Henry and Alfred Smith acquired land on Montville’s main road and on a back road. Henry was a true entrepreneur. He built the first cattle dip, opened two stores and a post office and ran the first private telephone line between one of the stores and his Montville home, which he built in 1895. That house still exists and after undergoing several changes of name and ownership, as well as substantial renovation, it is now called Eastnor House – part of the Montville Estate which offers guest accommodation.
It was Henry who proposed the name Montville for the settlement, recalling fond memories of his early years in the USA at Montville, Connecticut, where he had lived with his parents who emigrated there from England. The Queensland town had previously been called Razorback.
Montville has a true village charm. Its past is reflected in the mix of Tudor, English and Irish cottages of log or stone, of Swiss and Bavarian chalets, as well as the local 19th-century ‘Queenslanders’ – single-storey timber houses with wide verandas and corrugated iron roofs, built on stumps to give them elevation. It also has one of the most spectacular and panoramic views over a coastal plain.
Montville has several churches, all of them in Main Street. The Methodist, now Uniting Church, was built in 1912. St Mary’s Church was consecrated in August 1914, just days after the outbreak of World War I, far away in Europe. Montville does not have a cemetery, but in the 1990s St Mary’s Guild established a memorial garden behind the church, overlooking the coast, with a walled area for memorial plaques.
From the 1920s Montville was a thriving mountain holiday resort and also popular for convalescing. The Blackall Range was promoted as ‘Queensland’s Blue Mountains’ (the Blue Mountains being those in New South Wales, featured here) and guest houses abounded, especially in Montville. Sadly, many of these grand old buildings have been lost to bush fires.
In the 1970s, as the roads improved, Montville became accessible as a pleasant day trip from the coastal strip and from Brisbane, and the focus of local industry began to change from farming to tourism. The population increased dramatically as new infrastructure was developed.
The village remains popular with tourists seeking a mountain retreat and the design of many of the buildings constructed in the second half of the 20th century was inspired by a European ‘Alps’ aesthetic. It also developed as an arts and craft destination, particularly with the establishment of the Montville Pottery business in the mid-1960s, now redeveloped as The Pottery Building.
There are numerous outdoor attractions within easy reach of the town. Kondalilla National Park incorporates 327 hectares of lush subtropical rainforest and tall open forest on the western edge of the range. Its most popular attraction is Kondalilla Falls, which drops 90 metres from Skene Creek into some picturesque water pools below.
The Park is home to the Bunya Pine, which drops cones weighing up to 10 kg and containing large nuts on which the local Gubbi Gubbi people once fed. Fauna includes the rare spotted-tailed quoll, the peregrine falcon, the red goshawk and many reptiles and frogs.
The Glass House Mountains are also within easy reach of Montville, a cluster of what are really only hills that rise abruptly from the coastal plain. Known as volcanic plugs, they are so significant that they are listed on the Queensland and National Heritage Register as a landscape of national significance.
The Glass House Mountains are believed to have been formed about 27 million years ago, when volcanic activity produced molten rock that intruded as bodies beneath the surface and solidified into land rocks. Millions of years of erosion have removed the surrounding exteriors of volcanic cores and softer sandstone rock.
The highest peak is Mount Beerwah at 556 metres above sea level, but the most recognisable of all the hills is Mount Tibrogargan because of its pockmarked eastern face. There are 11, 12 or 13 peaks that make up the range, depending on which report you read, but I believe 12 is the correct number.
Walking tracks lead through a variety of open forests to lookouts with panoramic views of the mountains. You can walk around the base of Mount Tibrogargan to see its profile from many angles and to the top of Mount Ngungun for spectacular views of nearby peaks and the surrounding landscape.
The Yul-yan-man track is accessible from Beerburrum and Tibrogargan trailheads. It offers a grade 5 walk for people with rock scrambling skills. There are other challenging summit routes and climbing sites for experienced rock climbers and abseilers.
Built across the Obi Obi Creek and completed in 1989, Baroon Pocket Dam not only serves as a vital water source for the region, but also offers a range of attractive recreational facilities for visitors to enjoy. The dam features picnic tables, free barbecues, kayak hire and playgrounds, making it the perfect spot for a leisurely day with family and friends.
For nature enthusiasts and avid hikers, Baroon Pocket Dam offers a range of walking trails that wind through the surrounding forests, providing breathtaking views of the dam, its catchment area and the beautiful tree-lined streams.
Photos © Judy Barford except where otherwise credited
Source of historical information: Montville Guide
