How the site works
Finding a trail
Search, filters, the map, and what the collections are.
Use the search bar at the top of any page. Type a trail name or a suburb: suggestions appear as you type, and choosing a suburb searches straight away while choosing a trail opens it.
Open the search bar for filters. Activities and Difficulty are at the top, then Accessibility for trails with an accessibility guide. Under Advanced you can set a distance range, amenities such as toilets or parking, a region, and a minimum rating. Reset clears everything.
Tick Near me in the search bar and search. Your browser will ask to share your location the first time; once it has, results are ordered nearest first.
Near me orders every match by distance rather than cutting the list off at a radius, so a trail further away is still there, just lower down. If your browser blocks location, the search bar stays open so you can allow it and try again. Maps never ask for your location on their own.
Yes. On a wide screen the map sits beside the results. On a phone, choose the Map button at the bottom right of the trails list to open the map over the page, and Close map to come back. Your search stays across the top so you can narrow it while looking at the map.
Yes. The sort control sits beside the results count. Choose Name A to Z, Shortest first, Longest first, Easiest first, Hardest first or Top rated. Nearest first appears once a Near me search has your location.
A hand-picked set of trails built around an idea: waterfalls after rain, coastal lookouts, easy wins for little legs. Each collection is put together by the trails team and keeps the order they chose, so it reads like a plan for a day out rather than a search result.
Completing every trail in a collection earns a badge named after it, if you are signed in and mark them done.
Choose the Ai button beside the search bar, or on the home page choose Ask AI on the search bar, and type your question the way you would ask a person, such as an easy walk with a waterfall in the Hinterland. It answers with trail cards you can open and, often, a link to the full list of matching trails.
The assistant stays open while you browse. Minimise collapses it to a bar you can tap to come back, and New chat starts again. Your conversation is not saved: closing the assistant or reloading the page ends it.
Use it as a starting point, not the final word. It only suggests trails on this site and takes closures and hazards only from the council's own alerts and trail information, but it can still make mistakes. Check the trail page for alerts before you go.
When it mentions a review, that is a visitor's opinion, not council advice. It answers questions about trails, not about how the site works; search the help for those.
To answer a question such as trails near me, it needs to know where you are. Choose Share my location and allow it when your browser asks, or pick an area instead. It only asks when you choose the button.
Your position is used to sort trails by distance and is never passed to the AI itself.
Reading a trail page
The grades, the route file, directions and printing.
Every trail is rated Easy, Intermediate or Difficult. Easy suits most walkers with gentle grades. Intermediate includes steeper sections or uneven surfaces. Difficult needs a higher level of fitness and trail experience. These three are what the Difficulty filter uses.
Walking trails also show a Walking track grade from 1 to 5 in About this place, on the Queensland Parks walking track scale, with a sentence describing what each grade means for surface, steps, signage and length. Grade 1 is flat, well formed and signposted throughout; grade 5 is unformed, unmarked and for very experienced bushwalkers.
Yes. Choose GPX file in the trail's action row. GPX is the format most watches, cycling computers and mapping apps import.
Choose Directions in the trail's action row or on its map. It opens the trail's start point in your maps app so you can navigate there. Directions need a connection, so set them up before you lose signal.
Yes. Choose Print in the trail's action row for a print layout of the page. It is a good backup for somewhere with no signal, alongside saving the trail offline.
Using the site offline
Saving a trail to your phone, and what works without signal.
Open the trail and choose Save offline in its action row. The label changes to Saved offline once the page, its details and its photos are stored on your device. Choose it again to remove the copy.
Saved trails are listed under Saved offline in the account menu, which is there whether or not you are signed in. They stay on this device only and do not follow you to another phone or browser.
A saved trail's page opens without a connection: the description, the facts, the photos and the route details. The Saved offline list works too, and a banner tells you when you are offline.
The interactive map needs a connection, as do directions, adding a photo or review, favourites on your account, planning a trip and signing in. Save the trail and open its Directions while you still have signal.
Because the browser has not promised to keep them. When you save your first trail the site asks the browser for persistent storage; some grant it quietly, some ask you, and some decide on their own. Without it, the browser can remove saved pages when the device runs low on space. Check the Saved offline list before you head out of range.
Not yet. Adventure Sunshine Coast is a website that works on any phone, and saving a trail offline gives you the part of an app that matters on the track. Adding the site to your home screen from your browser's menu puts it one tap away.
Your account
Signing up, signing in, your password, and appearance.
Adventure Sunshine Coast uses the same Sunshine Coast Council account as MyCouncil and the council's app, so you have one sign-in for council services rather than another password to remember.
If you already have a MyCouncil account, it works here. If not, choose Log in / Sign up from the account menu and create one; it takes a minute.
The account itself lives in MyCouncil, the council's account website: your profile details, your password and closing the account are all managed there, and this site shows them without editing them.
A Google, Facebook or Apple account, or an email address and password. The sign-up screen offers all four, and whichever you choose is how you sign in from then on.
Choosing Google, Facebook or Apple means no new password to remember: that provider holds it, and the council never sees it. Choosing an email address and password creates a council account, and the email address has to be verified before the account is created.
It proves the email address is yours. When you sign up with an email address and password, a code is sent to that address and you type it back into the sign-up screen; the account is not created until you do. Signing up with a Google, Facebook or Apple account skips this, because the provider has already verified the address.
If the code has not arrived after a few minutes, check your junk or spam folder, check the address on screen is spelt correctly, and ask for a new code. Codes expire, so use the most recent one sent to you.
In MyCouncil, if you signed up with an email address and password. The password is your council account's and is shared with the council's other services, so it is changed there rather than here.
If you sign in with a Google, Facebook or Apple account there is no council password to change — that account's password belongs to the provider, so change it with them. MyCouncil cannot change it for you. Your profile page says which of the two you have.
Most things. You can search and read every trail, view collections, save trails offline, favourite trails on this device, report a photo and send feedback without signing in.
Signing in adds the things that belong to you: favourites kept across devices, lists, trips, reviews, photos, completed trails and badges. The site will ask you to sign in when you try one of them.
Through MyCouncil, if you signed up with an email address and password. Your name and email come from your council account and are shared with the council's other services, so this site shows them but doesn't edit them. Change them there and they update here the next time you sign in.
If you sign in with a Google, Facebook or Apple account, they come from that account instead, so change them with the provider.
Through MyCouncil, because the account is your council account rather than one that exists only here. The Your council account section of your profile page links straight there. Closing it removes your sign-in across all council services, including this one.
If you sign in with a Google, Facebook or Apple account, closing the council account ends its access to council services only — the Google, Facebook or Apple account is yours and is left as it is.
Up to 90 days from when you signed in. Ordinary page visits keep the sign-in fresh within that window, so you only have to sign in again after 90 days, or if you choose Log out.
Open the account menu and choose Appearance, then System, Light or Dark. System follows your device's setting. The choice is remembered by this browser, with or without an account.
Favourites and lists
Keeping trails to come back to, on your own or in a list.
Tap the heart on a trail card or trail page. Without an account, favourites are kept on this device only; the first time you use one the site offers to sign you in or to continue without an account. When you do sign in, favourites from this device are added to your account, so nothing is lost.
Favourites are one list with one tap and work without an account. Lists are your own named sets, as many as you like, for a member account: choose Add to list on a trail to add it to a list or start a new one, then find them under My lists.
Lists are private to you. To share a set of trails with someone, plan them as a trip and share that instead.
Planning a trip
Putting a day together from trails and places, and sharing it.
Go to My trips and choose New trip. Give it a name and, if you like, a date. Then use Add a stop to build the day: the Trails tab searches this site's trails and the Places tab searches cafes, shops and lookouts nearby. Drag stops to reorder them, and set how you will travel between each pair.
You can also add a trail straight from its page with Add to trip. Trips need a member account.
Photos and reviews
Adding yours, why they take a moment to appear, and reporting one.
Open the trail's photos and choose Add photos. Pick an image up to 20 MB, add a caption if you like, and Submit photo. You need to be signed in.
Photos are reviewed before they appear, so yours will show once it has been approved. The upload form lists what works well and what to leave out: your own photos of the trail, and nothing promotional, personal or unrelated.
Everything visitors share is checked before it is published. Most photos and reviews are checked automatically within moments; anything the automatic check is unsure about waits for a person on the trails team, which can take longer.
Track yours under My photos and My reviews. A photo shows Awaiting review, Published or Not approved. Nothing is published without passing the check.
Choose Add review in the trail's Reviews section, give it one to five stars, and add a few words if you like: track conditions, how long it took, tips on parking, shade or water. You need to be signed in.
You get one review per trail. Posting again replaces your earlier review, and the replacement goes through the same check before it appears.
Open the photo in the gallery and choose Report photo. You don't need an account. The team reviews every report.
Badges and achievements
Marking a trail done and what that earns.
Choose Mark done in the trail's action row once you have walked, ridden or paddled it. It changes to Completed, and choosing it again un-marks it. You need to be signed in, because completed trails are what your badges count.
By using the site. There are badges for the number of trails you complete, the distance they add up to, difficult trails, completing every trail in a region, a collection or a suburb, and for photos and reviews that are published. Some also reward pace, such as several trails within a month.
When you earn one, the site tells you straight away, and all of them are on My achievements, each with how it was earned.
Telling us something
Reporting a problem, suggesting a trail, and what happens next.
From the trail's own page, when council manage it. Scroll to About this place, find Managed by and choose Report a problem: the form opens already knowing which trail you mean, so you only have to describe what you found. Add a photo if you have one.
A fallen tree, a washed-out section, missing signs or a detail on the page that is wrong are all worth telling us about. You don't need an account.
Trails on Queensland Parks, Noosa Council or Seqwater land are looked after by them, not us, so Managed by lists their contacts instead — reporting to them gets it fixed faster. Anything about this website is still ours: use Help and feedback.
Use Suggest a trail on the feedback page. Give the trail's name, roughly where it is, what it's like and what it suits, and attach a GPX, KML or KMZ file of the route if you have one.
The team reviews every suggestion. Trails on this site come from the council's mapping, so adding one takes a little while rather than happening straight away.
Send it through the feedback form under Problem with the website, or for anything about using the site with assistive technology, under Accessibility. A screenshot helps enormously.
The form also records which browser and device you used, so you don't have to describe them. It says so next to the contact fields.
It goes into a queue the council's trails team works through. If you left an email address and they need more, they will be in touch. Nothing you send is shown on the site.
You can send feedback without an account. If you are signed in, your message is linked to your account so the team can reply even if you leave the contact fields empty.
Yes. The three faces at the top of the feedback form are a complete message on their own: pick one and choose Send. It helps the team see how the site is doing over time.
Safety on the trail
Before you go, while you're out, and who to call.
Read the trail's Safety section, check the weather and any fire or storm warnings, and tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back. Carry water, sun protection and a charged phone, and save the trail offline so the page works without signal.
Pick a trail that matches your fitness and experience using its difficulty grade, and allow more time than you think you need.
Triple Zero, 000, for police, fire or ambulance anywhere in Australia. Tell them the trail's name and the nearest landmark or access point; the trail page's start point and any managing authority's contacts in About this place can help you describe where you are.
Mobile coverage is patchy in the hinterland. If you have no signal, move to higher ground or back towards the trailhead before trying again.
Stay on the marked track, take your rubbish with you, leave plants and wildlife alone, and respect any restrictions the trail page shows, such as where dogs are not permitted. Give way on shared trails and let others know you are passing.
Privacy
What the site keeps, and what it doesn't.
Only what a feature needs. Without an account the site stores nothing about you on its servers; anything you save for offline use or favourite without signing in stays on your device.
With an account, it keeps what you create here: favourites, lists, trips, reviews, photos, completed trails and badges. Your name and email come from your council account and are not copied or edited here.
Feedback keeps your message, any files you attach, the contact details you choose to give, and which page and browser you sent it from, so the team can reproduce a problem.
The site uses Google Analytics to understand how the site is used and how to improve it. Nothing sent to Google identifies you or your account. Sunshine Coast Council handles personal information under its privacy statement.
No. Your location is only read when you tick Near me and search, or choose the locate button on a map. A Near me search sends it with that one search so the results can be ordered by distance; it is not stored and not linked to you. The dot on the map never leaves your device.
Didn't find it?
Tell us what you were looking for, or what went wrong. A problem on a particular trail is best reported from that trail's page, where the form already knows which trail you mean.