At the western base of Buderim, old communities that were bypassed when the Bruce Highway became a four-lane motorway found new value in the mid-1990s when an education precinct sprung up around them.
Forest Glen was a stopover for the Buderim-Palmwoods tram that operated from 1911 to 1935 and even had its own church. Years later, the Bruce Highway bypass took out through traffic, but it remains a busy little spot, largely due to its impressive industrial estate. The local shopping centre, with useful shops such as a butcher, baker, fruiterer and newsagency, also serves Mons, Tanawha and Chevallum and continues to thrive.
Moonshine Winery, which attracted its share of tourists as well as locals who appreciated its restaurant, kept Forest Glen in the news until the opening of the Sunshine Coast Grammar School in 1997 took the name to a far wider audience.
Down the road, the old Bruce Highway was renamed Tanawha Tourist Drive in recognition of the string of tourist attractions – deer sanctuary, waterslide park, Superbee and Bellingham hedge maze (only the latter two remain) to be found on the route during the late 1980s and 1990s. Kings Christian Church later went up on the waterslide site.
Before that, in the 1960s and early 1970s, Seal Park Zoo was at the intersection of Crosby Hill Road and the Bruce Highway. It disappeared, leaving only a service station and motel to mark any sort of town centre for Tanawha.
Its big attraction now is being on top of the University of the Sunshine Coast, with many properties literally overlooking the campus, Chancellor Park and the Sunshine Motorway.
Tanawha is also just down the hill from Buderim, a strategic position that a century ago saw it a valuable source of timbers that were hauled up Crosby Hill Road to the Buderim sawmill and today puts it at the crossroads of the Bruce Highway and Sunshine Motorway.
Summing up: Location, location, location … Forest Glen and Tanawha both moved upmarket after construction of the university and grammar school put new life back into the previously sleepy outposts. Valuable homes have sprung up on small acreages dotting the area which, despite its proximity to key road links, is still nicely hidden among rainforest.
