If getting away from it all and relaxing in the country is what you’d love to do, then you need to visit Kilcoy. Just over an hour’s drive from downtown Brisbane and Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast, here you will find a landscape characterised by rolling hills, sprawling green pastures and shimmering blue lakes. If you think the drive to Kilcoy is picturesque, wait till you see the township. Kilcoy has everything you need and more, for a wonderful break away in the country. Kilcoy is the stepping off point for the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail, offering a range of accomodation choices including camping, free overnight stays supported by Somerset Regional Council, Farm stay, bed & breakfasts, Cabins, Hotels and Motels.
Enjoy the video of Kilcoy and the ambience of our surrounds courtesy of Pine Tree Hill Estate:
- Somerset Dam camping facilities only 15 mins from Kilcoy
- Four wheel drive tracks surrounding the Kilcoy region
- The Courthouse Art Gallery
- Craft Centre
- Four local Vineyards with Cellar Doors
- Kilcoy Races run several times a year
- The annual show held in April each year
- A range of restaurants, cafes, takeaways and coffee shops to satisfy every taste bud.
The Legend of the Yowie
Kilcoy is the home of the Yowie which lives in the hills surrounding the Kilcoy Region. The legend of the Yowie goes back generations in Kilcoy, and even further with aboriginal accounts. Early timber cutters and farmers claim to have seen it in the hills since pioneering times.
In 1979 two 16 year-old Brisbane boys claimed to have seen the mythical creature, known as a ‘Yowie’, at Sandy Creek, four kilometres north of Kilcoy. They stumbled across a three metre mass of hair, bone and fangs. The boys shot at the creature and it ran away leaving a sulphurous smell behind. The boys tracked the creature for some time until they realised that it had doubled back and was tracking them. The teenagers told their school teacher, who visited the location where the boys had their encounter, and made plaster casts of the footprints. They measured 50cm and 15cm wide. Since this original sighting in 1979, there have been hundreds of sightings of the beast, the last reported sighting in Kilcoy was in May 2007.
Kilcoy has dedicated a park to the Yowie where a three metre tall wooden statute has been erected in its honour.