While vacationing with the family at the Gold Coast, Queensland, my wife surprised me with a brochure for tours to nearby Springbrook National Park. We’d all had enough of the amusement parks so before long we had booked a half day tour with Southern Cross Day Tours!

It was only a 45 minute trip out of the Gold Coast to our first stop, the breathtaking Natural Bridge waterfall. It was a fairly short walk, only twenty minutes in and the same back again. The route featured many strangler figs and mosses and ferns. The destination was a waterfall flowing through the roof of a cave with shafts of light shining through. It was so lovely! There were bats in the cave that I hadn’t noticed until the kids pointed them out. This is a really good walk to do with kids if anyone is thinking about visiting.

Our next stop was Purling Brook waterfall. Again it was only a short walk but we got to see some Pademelon’s (small wallabies) in the wild! There is a longer walk that could be done to the bottom of the waterfall and I’d like to do that one day as I found the trees and vegetation at the bottom to be very interesting from above.

Next stop was a lookout featuring Rainbow falls and Twin Falls. The views were spectacular and there was an informative sign showing a full day walk that could be done connecting everything in sight. One for the future.

The final stop was “Best of All Lookout”. Gotta love how Aussies name things! This short walk featured some Antarctic Beech trees which highlights that the area is an old Gondwana rainforest and is extremely special. The trees were magnificent and we spent a long time examining the hollows and twisted trunks. It helped to imagine a raptor sneaking out from behind it!

Beyond the trees was the lookout. The signage noted that the area was actually an eroded shield volcano. We could see the Gold Coast city, Byron Bay lighthouse (just) and Mount Warning.

Doing this half day tour was an excellent way of seeing the highlights of the park and makes me want to return for a good long walk one day. The tour was great to do with the kids and they seemed to enjoy it too. The geology and ecological history of the area is interesting and if I return I’ll be sure to look into that further so I gain a better appreciation for what I am walking though. I thoroughly enjoyed this trip!