History tells us that in 1842, Andrew Petrie explored the coast north of Brisbane and discovered the Mary River with a small party including two Aboriginal men from the Brisbane River region who spoke the Yuggera language. Their name for the local black swan was “Muru-kutchi” or “red-bill” from an Aboriginal expression describing the red bill of the Australian black swan. Petrie named the area Maroochy. The Maroochy River was navigable almost to Yandina, which was the district's principal place of settlement. Lake Dunethin and Dunethin Rock were a convenient place for loading and unloading from boats, and downstream from there the land was flood prone. Dunethin Rock or thereabouts was the site of the Maroochy River primary school (1911-72) and the school of arts hall (1914). The Maroochy River locality, however, was regarded as an outlying part of Yandina. Dunethin Rock was also a depot for sugar cane grown north of the river, until the Moreton central mill in Nambour extended the cane-train network with a bridge over the river in the 1930s. Since the closure of the Nambour mill, cane growers have gone into producing cow-candy fodder.
James Low first cleared the land around Dunethin Rock and erected a store to service people on the way to the Gympie gold fields in 1868. He subsequently relocated his business to land at the Maroochy River Crossing near Yandina. Until the 1970s the official spelling was Dunethim – although from the 1920s onward Dunethin was the name in common use locally and later adopted officially by the Queensland Place Names Board. The name was derived from the Aboriginal, ‘Dhu-Yungathin’ meaning trees – swim and had its origin in the activities of local timber getters who rafted logs down the Maroochy River. After major floods in1893 and 1898, Maroochy selectors near ‘Dunethim’ requested that a reserve at Dunethin Rock be set aside as a safe retreat for both people and stock in times of flood and also ‘for township and other purposes as required’. Much of it is now Council Bushland Reserve. In 1867 James Low established a depot and rafting ground near Yandina Cattle Run Wharf on the north bank of the river 500 metres upstream from Lake Dunethin. Rafting timber from here continued until William Pettigrew’s mill closed in 1898. The historic cane railway lift bridge is located 2kms downstream from Lake Dunethin Road boat ramp.