Friday, 17 February, 2023
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28-page Property Guide INSIDE
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INSIDE
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Making a difference
PR OP ER TY
Plum arts job for Bree Pickering By Phil Jarratt Australia’s latest supremo of the visual arts world credits Noosa and its beaches with providing the creative stimuli to take her to the top. Former Sunshine Beach High student Bree Pickering, 40, who grew up in Kin Kin and Marcus Beach, was last week announced as the new director of Canberra’s National Portrait Gallery, a blue-ribbon appointment in Australian arts administration. Shortly after the announcement, Bree told Noosa Today: “There’s no way you’re not going to be into aesthetics if you spend time in Noosa. It’s just so beautiful. The ocean is where a lot of creativity comes from, I’m sure. But also there was time for me to dream and imagine, growing up in Noosa.” It also helped that she was surrounded by art in her formative years, with dad John Pickering a fine jazz guitarist and he and mum Di later working on major films. Continued page 4
Bree Pickering.
Picture: SUPPLIED
Tourist overload By Phil Jarratt
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The residents of Teewah Village have had it up to the high tide mark with escalating visitor numbers on the North Shore and constant streams of often reckless drivers on their oncepristine beach. Following Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service data revealing a 40 per cent increase in visitation since 2019 and anecdotal evidence that summer 2022-23 has been the busiest and most dangerous yet, the Teewah Landowners Association is demanding immediate action.
They have called for a remedy to the situation, and better planning for the future, following a December-January holiday period in which a tourist overload was exacerbated by king tides and high seas making beach driving dangerous for even experienced 4WD exponents and a time bomb for the growing number of inexperienced hoons who plagued the Teewah beach most weekends and holidays. Photos posted on social media over the holidays showed vehicles overturned in creek beds, dune devastation and kilometre-long queues to get through a soft sand pass, but
they only hinted at the broader picture of loss of flora and fauna, human waste dumps behind dunes and a beach that some residents say they were frightened to use. Even last Friday, in relatively quiet February, photographer Rob Maccoll and I were astounded by the constant stream of beach traffic at speeds nearly double the 50 km limit in front of the village. Landowners Association chairman Paul Winter just shook his head slowly and said: “We see hundreds if not thousands of vehicles coming up the beach every weekend and it’s increasing all the time. It’s not sustainable and
no one wants to do anything about it.” Committee member Peter Brewer added: “[Noosa MP] Sandy Bolton is certainly having a crack but I came away from the meeting we had with QPWS totally disillusioned because they’re not dealing with the cause of the problem, only the effect.” So the Landowners Association has embarked on an awareness program they hope will force the issue, and it presents a grim picture of current realities for the once-secluded beach village. Continued page 5