Meridan Plains holds three distinct water types. The Mooloolah River appears twice, once as an estuary reach and once as an upstream stream reach, and the suburb also contains the Currimundi Creek South intermittently closed and open lake and the Ring Tank, which is classed as a water supply dam. Its single council water access feature is a water access ramp at Leacys Bushland Conservation Reserve, and there is no boat ramp, so the nearest trailer ramp is Westaway Parade at Currimundi.
Most suburbs have one sort of water. Meridan Plains has three. The council layer records the Mooloolah River inside the boundary as both an estuary reach and an upstream stream reach, plus the Currimundi Creek South intermittently closed and open lake and the Ring Tank, classed as a water supply dam. What it does not record is a boat ramp: the suburb has exactly one water access feature, a water access ramp at Leacys Bushland Conservation Reserve, so a trailer boat goes east to Westaway Parade at Currimundi.
Three water types in one boundary is a useful thing to live with, because it forces the question a licence course spends its day answering: what kind of water am I actually on, and which rules attach to it. An estuary reach of the Mooloolah behaves nothing like the upstream stream reach of the same river, and neither behaves like a lagoon or a reservoir.
The reservoir is the sharpest example. The Ring Tank is classed as a water supply dam, which is a management category rather than a boating category. Freshwater storages differ sharply from one another on what may be launched and under what power, and Seqwater states plainly that the laws on all inland waterways are the same and are set by Maritime Safety Queensland, so the Queensland threshold of more than 4.5 kilowatts applies on inland water exactly as it does on the coast. The lesson generalises: the water body's manager decides access, and MSQ still decides the marine rules.
The lagoon is the second example. Currimundi Creek South is an intermittently closed and open lake. Council's own description of that class of waterway is that sand closes off the entrance for weeks, months or even years at a time, that it may open the entrance only under an Environmental Authority for flooding or water quality and never for navigation, and that it gives no advance notice.
So the trailer goes to the ramp that is built for it. Westaway Parade at Currimundi is the nearest trailer ramp to Meridan Plains, and once you are on Currimundi Lake the whole system carries a 6-knot limit, covering the lake and every creek flowing into it, gazetted 21 May 2004. Slow, protected, and exactly the speed control the practical assessment tests.
The course itself 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.
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.
