The Caloundra lighthouses

Two lighthouses stand side by side on the highest point of Caloundra, on Canberra Terrace above Kings Beach: a small white timber tower from 1896 and a concrete tower from 1968 that looks like an airport control tower. Neither is a working light any more. Together they are on the Queensland Heritage Register, and the grounds around them are a free public park with views to Moreton Island, Pumicestone Passage and the Glass House Mountains.

Why Caloundra needed a light

In 1879 Queensland's Portmaster, George Poynter Heath, sounded a new channel from Caloundra Head down the eastern side of Bribie Island. This North West Channel soon proved the safest deep-water way into the Port of Brisbane, but it stayed unlit until 1896, when the Caloundra Head lighthouse and two leading lights on Bribie Island were finished. Mariners called the Caloundra light "the key to Moreton Bay". By 1920, every ship entering or leaving Brisbane at night had to use the channel it marked.

The 1896 lighthouse

The old tower was built by day labour under the Department of Harbours and Rivers between March and August 1896, and went into service that September when its first keeper was appointed. It is a 12-metre conical hardwood frame clad in corrugated iron, with a domed lantern: the timber-and-iron design Queensland used for its colonial lighthouses, first tried at Lady Elliot Island in the early 1870s.

• A post office and a school. One room of the keeper's cottage was the town's postal and telegraph office, run by the keeper, until 1934. For a few months in the late 1890s the cottage was also Caloundra's first school, because the first keeper had such a big family.
• A street made by walkers. The track locals wore along the ridge to reach the lighthouse post office eventually became Canberra Terrace.
• A first for Queensland. In 1910 the light became the first in Queensland with an incandescent vapour lamp. By 1912 it could be seen at least 22 to 25 miles out to sea.

The lighthouse that went on a road trip

When the new tower took over in 1968, the old one was threatened with demolition. In 1970 the Golden Beach Power Boat Club moved it to Woorim Park at Golden Beach, beside their clubhouse site, so it could stay a tourist attraction. After the signal station closed in 1992, the Lions Club of Caloundra led the push to bring it home. The first attempt, on 22 March 1999, went wrong when the timber frame gave way as the tower was being loaded onto a truck. After repairs, it was set back on its original Canberra Terrace site on 11 June 1999, over its 1896 footing.

The 1968 tower

The concrete tower was built as a combined lighthouse, signal station and radar station, part of a pilot station scheme based at the Mooloolah River, and opened in 1968. Its square concrete shaft and D-shaped observation room make it look like an airport control tower. Only two were built to this design in Australia, and the other, at Lytton Hill, was demolished in the 1990s, so Caloundra's is the last one.

Its working life was short: high-rise buildings nearby soon blocked the light from the sea. In 1978 a new lighthouse at Point Cartwright, at the mouth of the Mooloolah River, took over lighting the North West Channel, and the signal station was de-staffed in 1992. Point Cartwright is the light that works today.

Caloundra Head in the Second World War

With Brisbane a major wartime port, the North West Channel became its only entrance, and ships gathered in convoys off Caloundra Head before running the channel. For most of the war the Royal Australian Navy kept an observation post inside the lighthouse reserve, with watches around the clock and control over when the light was shown. After the light went onto mains power in 1942 it no longer needed a keeper, and the Coastal Artillery moved into the keeper's cottage. The Navy's Port War Signal Station stood nearby at Wickham Point. A boulder in Lions Park carries a memorial plaque to the servicemen stationed here.

Visiting the lighthouses

• Where: Lions Park, Canberra Terrace, Kings Beach, Caloundra. Both towers are visible from much of Caloundra, especially around Kings Beach.
• The grounds are free and open: both towers, the gardens and the views. There is a small car park along the Canberra Terrace side of the park.
• Going inside: volunteers from the Friends of the Caloundra Lighthouses run open days on the second and fourth Saturday of each month, 9am to 3pm, when enough guides are available. Adults pay a small fee and children are free. Check the Friends' listing on the council site before you go.
• Inside is steep: the old tower has near-vertical timber steps and hatchways, and the 1968 tower has a spiral concrete stair, so neither is suited to prams or wheelchairs.
• Drones: the precinct is council land, and flying a drone there needs a council permit as well as following the CASA rules.

Make a morning of it

• Kings Beach, directly below: a patrolled beach with a seawater ocean pool, a water-play fountain and playgrounds.
• The Coastal Pathway: walk south to Bulcock Beach (1.6 km, accessible) or north over the headlands to Moffat Beach (2.9 km), past the Shelly Beach rock pools.
• Point Cartwright Reserve at Buddina: see the working lighthouse, a short walk from a free car park, with views over the Mooloolah River mouth.
• The WALK Caloundra heritage walk: a free self-guided brochure from the council that takes in Bulcock Street and the 1896 lighthouse.

Updated 17 October 2026. Check opening times and conditions before you go.