Maleny Between Rainforest, Trails and Culture

Rainforest, trails through varied landscapes, village history and cheese tastings: Maleny offers plenty of ways to spend your days outdoors or enjoying culture and good food. When planning your trip, it’s worth sorting the experiences by your interests and preferred trail length. This can help you decide which aspects of the area matter most when choosing a holiday rental in Maleny.

Explore the rainforest and wetlands

Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve covers 55 hectares of subtropical rainforest and offers views of the Glass House Mountains National Landscape. For a different natural setting, try the Maleny Northern Wetlands Trail: this easy, 2.0 km one-way trail passes through a wetland. You can watch birds and hear frogs calling there. The two destinations offer different highlights: rainforest and mountain scenery at one, wetlands and wildlife sounds at the other.

Choose trails by length and interest

The Mary Cairncross: Rainforest Walk is a 1.7 km loop. The Mary Cairncross: Interpretive Boardwalk is shorter, at 0.2 km; it is also a loop and is suitable for walkers, strollers and wheelchairs. If you’re travelling with children or looking for a shorter route, you can keep these details in mind when planning your day, while recognising that the trails are different.

Gardners Falls Park and Riparian Reserve is at the end of Obi Lane South in Maleny. A 300-metre trail leads to a popular waterhole, rock pools and natural rainforest. The Maleny Trail, meanwhile, follows Obi Obi Creek from the town centre, past the golf course, to the circuit at Reynolds Crossing. The section to the Reynolds Crossing area is suitable for walkers and recreational cyclists. This gives you a choice between a short walk to a waterhole and rock pools, and a trail for walks or recreational bike rides.

Village history, art and cheese

The Maleny Cultural & Historical Society is based at Maleny Historical Village. The society collects, restores, preserves and displays memorabilia that illustrates earlier ways of life in the Maleny district. Tours of the Village run Tuesdays and Saturdays from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, or by appointment. If you’re interested in the district’s history, you can plan this visit as a separate activity.

Art along the way and local cheese-making are also among the experiences on offer. The Peace in the Trees Sculpture Walk, also known as the Maleny Town Trail, features numerous works by local artists along the path beside Obi Obi Creek. Maleny Cheese’s yoghurt and cheese tasting tour explores the art of cheese-making from farm to flavour. On a guided tasting, you can sample artisan cheddars, bries, fetas and seasonal buffalo cheeses.

Plan your stay around your interests

Another annual event is the Maleny Music Festival, held every November at the Maleny Showgrounds. Nature trails, art, history, cheese and the festival offer different reasons to discover Maleny. If you’re looking for a holiday rental, you can start by thinking about which of these experiences you’d like to shape your stay. When choosing what to do each day, it helps to consider the specifics: a loop or a one-way trail, a short circuit or a longer route, wildlife watching or culture. This way, you can start planning around the activities that appeal to you in Maleny, rather than a single idea of what a holiday destination should be like.

Discover more places

If you’d like to explore more places: Flaxton, Coolum Beach, Mooloolah Valley, Sunshine Beach, Caloundra, Nambour, Tewantin, Doonan.

For the main travel overview: Sunshine Coast.