Rapid Travel Chai

Following Fraser Island I still had one day to burn in Brisbane, Australia, waiting for my flight to the Solomon Islands. Why not scoop up another UNESCO World Heritage Site?

The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia is a collective UNESCO site encompassing 41 national parks and nature reserves in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland, along Australia’s Gold Coast.

Countryside around Lamington

Lamington National Park is the furthest north and the most easily accessible to Brisbane. However, it is unremarkable. The drive down from Brisbane takes an hour through quiet farm town to reach the park entrance and then another half-hour in slow ascent on the mostly one-lane, twisting road. There are frequent turn-offs but no mirrors and it is nerve-wracking to navigate the many blind turns. The western Green Mountains section and eastern Binna Burra  section do not connect by road, only hiking trails, so choose by interest. Green Mountains boasts the O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat and the purported original tree top walk in the world on the Rainforest Return. Binna Burra is all about the hikes with few facilities.

World's first tree top walk

I went to Green Mountains and did the three shortest walks, Rainforest Return (1.4 km), Python Rock (3.4 km), and Morans Falls (4.6 km). Most memorable was not the serpentine rock but the Morans Falls viewing platform blocked by construction so that the view to the falls was totally obstructed.  Hey park rangers, how about a sign at before we talked 2.6 to see a wall of bushes?

Crow's Nest Fern

Morans Falls, any closer and your view is blocked off