Post Code: 4036 Distance to CBD: 20 km
Bald Hills is the northernmost suburb of Brisbane. It is primarily residential with farms and open bushland areas. The suburb provides a scenic view of rounded profile of the D’Aguilar Range. There are local cafes, pubs and restaurants in the area. There are also shopping centres in the area like the Bracken Ridge Shopping Precinct, Brighton Shopping Centre and Deagon Plaza. Most houses are single detached units with modern brick and tile structures and the old timber and tin structures.
There are two schools in the suburb, the Bald Hills State School, a primary school established in 1866 and St. Paul’s Scoll an Aglican private school.
The name of the suburb is derived from the description of the elevated grassy knolls that can be seen along the South Pine River. The area was primarily used as grazing and farming land prior to the 1860’s. It was settled by two families, the Stewarts and the Duncans in 1857.The two families cleared the area and established farms. Another family, the Carseldines opened the first shop in Bald Hills. In 1871, a post office and a coach service, Cobb and Co, were opened. The Gympie Gold Rush brought some development to the area with the establishment of a railway that was completed in 1888. By the 1900’s, a telephone service was installed. However, the development is very slow. Until the 1950’s, the suburb remained a rural area which supplied agricultural produce to the city. A housing boom after World War II brought some changes with the subdivision of the Richmond Heights Estate and the Eatons property in 1954. Among the notable structures constructed in the post-war era is the radio transmission tower situated east of the suburb. Further subdivision of the large estates like Carseldine, Feuerriegel and Williamson were done in 1974
Bald Hills Top Attraction
o The Tinchi Tamba Wetland Reserve.
The name Tinchi Tamba is derived from the aboriginal words ‘Tinchi’ which means mangrove and ‘Tamba’ which means ibis. The reserve covers 380 hectares of wetland situated at a bend of the North Pine River near the Bracken Ridge. It is a part of a chain of coastal wetlands of Moreton Bay, which includes the Moreton Bay Marine Park and the mangrove forest. The reserve has a variety of vegetation habitat which includes dry eucalyptus woodlands, casuarina forests, paperback swamps, inter-tidal flats, mangroves, salt marshes, grasslands and swamp pastures. The mangrove estuary provides a breeding area for the bay’s marine animals. The tides which occurred twice a day provide the food nutrients for the fishes, the crustaceans and the molluscs. The reserve is also the home of several species of rare local birds such as jabiru, avocets and magpie geese. It also provides a transit area for the migratory birds that came from places as far as Alaska.
The reserve also houses several species of frogs and insects. The reserve has boarded walkways, rest stations, and observation platforms that run through the reserve. The reserve is great for hiking, bird watching and canoeing.