Mt Tamborine National Park

Gold Coast is considered to be the best beach vacation destination in Australia, with a abundance of theme parks, night life, beach culture and warm weather.But on this particular trip we concentrated on the rain-forest hinterland of the Gold Coast known as Mt Tamborine, which is part of scenic rim rainforests also comprising Lamington and Springbrook National park. The weather was great with an overcast sky and cool weather. Infact the weather in the hinterland regions would be atleast 3-4 degrees cooler than the coast, and would definitely would be good place to hang out especially on a hot summer day.

The first place of interest we visited in Mt Tamborine National park was the forest walk. There is a certain elevated route bridge on suspension taking one along the canopy of the rainforest, giving a different perspective. Apart from the sheer height of the platform which is around 100ft from the forest floor, the novelty of this attraction soon wears off and you question whether it was worth $19.50 entry fee. And the entire thing is over within half an hour at max.

The next stop was the Glow worm caves. The Glow worm caves of New Zealand are known across the world , but before coming to this place never knew that Glow worm caves exist in Australia too. Well to be fair, the Glow Worm Caves of Mt Tamborine is man made and the conditions are controlled to make the environment favorable for these tiny creatures. The entry fee of $12 is quite reasonable and based on the availability one is assigned batches which depart at regular intervals. The entire park is in a picture-some setting. Once we reached our designated starting point , we were taken into a cave, wherein we were given an initial information session detailing the life of the glow worms. Once that is done, which also helps the eyes get used to the dark, since the video is shown in a near dark room , we are let into the man made cave teaming with glow worms. And it was just beautiful inside with thousands of glow worms , like millions of stars lighting the night sky. These glow worms require their atmosphere to be quite moist and humid.The reason these glow worms do what they are famous for is to quite simply attract their food, which is primarily flies and bugs which have a tendency to get attracted towards light. These worms have a single string with multiple saliva bubbles suspended which refracts light from their body to give that twinkling effect. Quite magical indeed. Would be really interesting to see them in their natural environment.

The final stop within this national forest was the Cover Creak falls. Unfortunately there was not much water flow in this falls, and it was more like a trickle. It is generally advised to visit the falls in the hinterland a day or two after heavy rains to see them in full flow. Having covered the major places of this national park we decided to end our trip by enjoying the beautiful Surfer Paradise beach, which is the commercial heart of Gold Coast.