The Parrearra lock is the only way a vessel gets from the Kawana lake system out to the Mooloolah River. Council's Parrearra Lake Management Plan 2019-2029 states the navigation lock allows registered motorised vessels only, up to 15 metres long, 4.5 metres wide and 2.0 metres draft, to pass through safely at low tide, and that use by non-motorised watercraft is not permitted, naming kayak, stand up paddleboard, canoe, pontoon and sail craft. Two portages, steps built into the weir, exist for those craft instead.
Here is the inversion that makes the Kawana lakes unusual. A kayak needs no licence at all, and it is the craft the Parrearra lock turns away: council's management plan names kayak, stand up paddleboard, canoe, pontoon and sail craft as not permitted, and provides two portages, steps built into the weir, for them instead. A registered motorised vessel with a licensed skipper is the craft that goes through. The lock allows registered motorised vessels only, up to 15 metres long, 4.5 metres wide and 2.0 metres draft, to pass through safely at low tide.
So on this particular water the licence is not paperwork attached to a bigger engine. It is the thing that changes your route. The Parrearra lock is the only way a vessel gets from the Kawana lake system to the Mooloolah River, and it opens for the registered motorised vessel and closes to the craft you carry. Around most of the coast the paddler has the freer run of the water. Here it is the other way round.
There is a piece of admin that catches people out. Lock access requires a card or a FOB, collected in person from a council customer contact centre with photo identification. That is not something to discover on the morning you planned to go through.
The lock also has hard dimensions, and they are worth knowing before you buy rather than after. Fifteen metres long, 4.5 metres wide, 2.0 metres draft. A boat outside those numbers does not get from the lake to the river by that route.
The lake behaves differently from the river on either side of it. Parrearra Lake has a restricted tidal range of about 300 millimetres, which is part of why the lock exists: it is what lets a vessel pass through safely at low tide. If you would rather skip the lock entirely on a given day, the nearest all-tide trailer ramp is Outrigger Park at Minyama.
Once you are on the Mooloolah system, one gazetted rule stands out from every other water nearby. All canals connected to the Mooloolah River between the entrance near Mooloolah Drive and the entrance near Chelsea Crescent carry a 4-knot limit, gazetted 21 May 2004, and that is the only 4-knot zone in the Sunshine Coast study area, where every other restricted water nearby is 6 or 20 knots. Four knots is slower than the six most people default to.
The course runs from the Caloundra venue in the Golden Beach locality, on the Pumicestone Passage, roughly 80% of which is less than two metres deep. Online theory first, completed within three months of the practical day.
The course itself is the same wherever you sit it: the theory online first, in your own time, then a day on the water with a trainer before the assessment. You need a licence for any boat with an engine over 4.5 kilowatts, which is nearly every tinny, runabout and cruiser. Pass, and the Queensland licence never expires. Pick the date that suits you and book online.
