Whilst it is probably a relatively easy find take the time to continue on the concrete path for a great 200m walk through the rainforest. When you get to the end of the walk you can turn right and find the cache in Sam Bowda Park or turn left and continue on the raised walkway to the ever-expanding Bli Bli Shopping Centre.
The tree is an example of the strangler fig. The strangler fig is a parasite but it only uses the host tree for support – it does not take any nutrients from the host, unlike mistletoe. One of the interesting things about the strangler fig is that an efficient parasite would not normally kill its host, as that would mean the end of the parasite as well. The strangler fig, however, can kill its host, as by then it is self-supporting, literally and metaphorically.
The name Bli Bli is derived from the Kabi word bilai meaning sheoak tree (Casuarina glauca). Therefore Bilai Bilai means many forest oak trees.
Bli Bli rises above the wetlands, which were, for many years, the home of the Sunshine Coast sugar cane industry. Whilst this industry is all but gone, state government legislation ensures the wetlands will remain an undeveloped “Green Space”. Bli Bli has become a conveniently located residential community, with a rapidly expanding number of new home developments.
The first homestead at Bli Bli was erected in 1862. By the late 1880s, the district was almost fully settled. In 1903 a significant area of the Bli Bli locality was under cultivation. Corn, potatoes, and other farm vegetables, Pawpaw, orange trees and coffee trees were being farmed.
In the 1860s, William Clark grew sugarcane on his selection. This was probably experimentally or as fodder for bullocks drawing logs for rafting along the Maroochy River, which runs along the eastern side of the village. A cane tramway was built to Deepwater in the vicinity of Bli Bli in 1912 and cane was grown in commercial quantities at Bli Bli by 1915. Extension of the tramway system in 1936 through Bli Bli ensured that sugarcane became the staple agricultural crop in the locality.