Mount Coot-tha Forest

Mount Coot-tha Forest is a heritage-listed forest reserve at Sir Samuel Griffith Drive, Mount Coot-tha, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as Mount Coot-tha Reserve. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 4 September 2007.

The area now known as Mount Coot-tha Forest lies on the slopes of Mount Coot-tha, which was originally known as One Tree Hill. The name dated from 1839, when government surveyor James Warner cleared the summit while establishing a trigonometric survey station, leaving a single prominent tree standing as a landmark visible from the surrounding district. The surrounding forest later became an important timber reserve, proclaimed in 1873 to supply wood for railway construction in Queensland. During the early 1880s the reserve began to be managed for public recreation with the adopted name of Mount Coot-tha, an Indigenous name commonly interpreted as meaning “place of honey,” referring to the native stingless bees traditionally collected in the area.

Since at least the 1920s, Mount Coot‑tha Forest has been associated with tragic incidents, including documented cases of murder and suicide. In Australian folklore, Mount Coot‑tha Forest has also long been reported in local accounts as a place of paranormal phenomena and cryptids, including ghosts, shadow figures, the yarri, and yowies. At the foot of Mount Coot‑tha is the Toowong Cemetery, Queensland’s largest necropolis and among the largest in Australia.

Mount Coot-tha Forest includes more than 70 walking and hiking trails as well as over 50 routes designated for mountain biking. The reserve covers approximately 1,600 hectares of bushland, providing a wide range of tracks that vary in length and difficulty. Several popular tracks connect to nearby attractions such as the Mount Coot-tha Lookout and the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. The forest also has a number of points of interest including, Simpson Falls, J C Slaughter Falls, and the Ghost Hole mine.