Mt Tamborine is about an hour south of Brisbane by car, 30 minutes north of the Gold Coast. It’s a popular tourist area in the mountains with many arty stores and great views of the coast.

Mount Tamborine National Park is not a large single park but several smaller ones scattered throughout the region. It has 6 short walks with approximately 20km of trails between them. Today I’ve decided to walk all of them.

Maps are owned by and used with courtesy of Queensland Government.  Please visit that site for more detailed information on hiking in this region.

Palm Grove and Jenyns Circuits – 5.4km
For my first walk of the day, I chose the hardest of the trails in Mt Tamborine. When I say hardest, I mean in a very easy kind of way. The rocky path meanders through the tall thin trees with plentiful small creek crossings. There are views to the south of Springbrook National Park and The Cougals. In this part of the National Park I saw the most wildlife, with several wallabies feeding near the entrance and an Iguana who started climbing a tree when he saw me before changing his mind and just sitting on the trail staring at me.

Curtis Falls and Joalah Circuit – 4.2km
Similar to Palm Grove, but without the animals. Much of the trail is sealed and was the most popular track of the day for visitors. The trail heads to a lookout at Curtis Falls, then along the stream where it crosses it at two places on concrete bridges.

Witches Falls Circuit – 3.4km
Witches falls was the first established National Park in Queensland. The rocky dirt trail leads along the road line at the top of the park, past a grave yard before plunging down a steep hill to the waterfall at the bottom. The lookout is set just to the side of the rocky waterfall and gives a partial view.

Knoll Walking Track – 2.6km
The Knoll starts off at the top of a knoll (surprise!), with a lookout to the west towards Brisbane city. The track begins fairly typically to the rest of the National Park, a rocky track heading through the rain forest. It meanders down the knoll to a lookout at the top of a cliff overlooking a waterfall. You can walk around to the top of the waterfall and stand on the rocky edge watching the water flow down to the pool below while looking out across green hills to the west.

Cedar Creek – 1.2km

While only a very short and sealed track, the waterfall at Cedar creek is the best of the day. The water holes at the bottom are good locations for swimming in the warmer months (which is most of the year in Queensland). The path meanders down the mountain, stopping at lookouts before arriving at the bottom. A less sealed track continues along the river to another, larger water hole.

Rainforest Walk – 1.4km
For my last walk of the day, the rainforest walk is just that, a walk around a rainforest. I suggest doing this walk first as beyond the rainforest, there’s not much else to see. In saying that, the short rocky track is not a bad walk and there were a couple of large strangler figs along the way. The rocky dirt track was fairly easy.

The Trail Wanderer