A government survey of the land on the shores of the Noosa River was completed in 1870. The land was available to purchase the following year. The first purchase of land south of Doonella Lake was by Frederick G. Goodchap. He bought 80 acres directly opposite the infant township of Tewantin.
Goodchap was at one time the magistrate in Gympie. He was also a partner in the large sawmilling firm McGhie, Luya & Co. and the company purchased the headland on the western shore of Lake Cootharaba, which included Mill Point (Boreen Point today). As manager, Goodchap later moved to Colloy on the north bank of the Noosa River, opposite what would soon become Gympie Terrace, when the company moved their operations there.
Goodchap’s house in Noosaville was located on what is now the corner of Hilton Terrace and Earl Street. In 1880, this was the location of the capture of Kagariu, a bushranger of Kabi Kabi origin, known to the wider public as Johnny Campbell. According to the local tales he was found by Aboriginal trackers, bound up with Mrs Goodchap’s clothes line and handed to Goodchap as the local Justice of the Peace.
One of the highest floods recorded in the area occurred after nine days of heavy rain at the end of February and early March in 1893. The river was swirling under the each of the handful of houses on Gympie Terrace at the time. A relief party found it knee deep under Goodchap’s House. The family were given board at the Royal Mail Hotel in Tewantin despite it already being fully occupied with visitors.
A view of the Goodchap property across Lake Doonella, circa 1930
A generation later, when the Noosa Shire Council were looking at building a bridge over Doonella Lake in the 1920s, members of the Goodchap family offered to contribute £200 (about $30,000 today) from the first sale of part of their subdivided land after the bridge’s construction. This offer was not accepted as the Council sold their land at what is now Sunshine Beach to fund the construction of the Doonella Bridge and Weyba Bridge.
A view of the Goodchap property across Lake Doonella, 1930s
Cabins on Goodchap street, circa 1946