With its European design influences, quaint shops and popular cafes, Montville has long been a favourite with tourists and coastal locals on a day trip. MPP heads up the range to see what all the fuss is about.

Known as the Sunshine Coast’s creative heart, Montville is truly charming with a mixof Irish- and English-inspired cottages of log or stone, Swiss and Bavarian-style chalets, an old water-wheel, plus colonial buildings and established Queenslanders.

The days of merely providing a general store, post office and garage for local residents ended in the late 1970s, and since then Montville has continued evolving as a centre for arts and fine dining, with galleries and popular cafes.

With its eclectic mix of architecture, it is one of the few places that can truly be described as a ‘village’

This evolution brought with it a main street lined with shop fronts carefully designed to foster the feeling of ‘ye olde England’, a sense supported by the Village Green, St Mary’s Church and the quaint bridge over the road on the way to the superb lookout point behind its school.

Out of town, which is often crowded with tourists, is the sportsground and the picnic perfect Lake Baroon recreation area.

The central range town between Mapleton and Maleny, Montville is accessed from the east by either the long and winding Palmwoods-Montville Road or the rough short cut ‘up the Razorback’, both out of Palmwoods. Statisticians include it as part of the Palmwoods district but in reality the two towns share few interests.

As well as million-dollar properties with views that sit along the edge of the range, there are smaller estates to the west, but conscious of its unique opportunity, a lot of agonising went into residential planning in the 1990s in an effort to retain its amenity.

Montville has extremely limited residential land near the village and along the escarpment but is backed by green hills offering both acreage and estate allotments. The village is a stylish little place 30 minutes from the coast, and is a picture-perfect spot for retirees or anyone wanting a slower pace in a pretty setting.

New developments offer retirees accommodation options in the hinterland

Sunshine Coast Council recently gave preliminary approval for the development of a new retirement village on the former Superbee tourist attraction site on Tanawha Tourist Drive.