Tamborine Mountain – ‘The Green behind the Gold’
Tamborine Mountain is a beautiful lush green mountain plateau in the Gold Coast Hinterland, only an hours’ drive from Brisbane or Surfers Paradise. It is home to the first ever National Park in Queensland and a secret hideaway for Australia’s city dwellers.
Tamborine Mountain
Tamborine Mountain is part of the famous Gold Coast Hinterland, south of Brisbane, in South Eeast Queensland, Australia. The plateau is about 560m high and measures 8 km long and 4 km wide. It has 3 small villages (North Tamborine, Eagle Heights and Mount Tamborine) with a total population of just under 7000.
The plateau originated from the Mount Warning volcanic eruption 22 million years ago and is part of the Scenic Rim Regional Shire. The plateau looks down on the surrounding lowlands, to the Gold Coast and Pacific Ocean to the east and all the way to the Great Dividing Range to the west. The Gold Coast view is breathtaking by day, but by night the panorama of lights is even more stunning.
Tamborine Mountain was the home of the Wangerriburra aborigines tens of thousands of years before white settlement. It was completely covered by subtropical rainforest, which was cleared at a rapid pace for agriculture and timber production after it was opened for selection in 1875. Fortunately in 1908 efforts were made to protect the natural beauty of the mountain and the very first National Park was created in Queensland – Witches Falls National Park. Over the years 12 separate sections with mainly remnant rainforest were added to the original National Park, almost encircling the plateau, and named ‘Tamborine National Park’. Most areas have well defined and easy to negotiate bush walking tracks right through the rainforest.
Tamborine Mountains Climate
Queensland is known as the Sunshine State of Australia. On Tamborine Mountain you can enjoy abundant sunshine with less heat and humidity that more northerly parts of Queensland sometimes have to endure. The climate is subtropical, with the annual rainfall of about 1600 mm falling mainly between December and March. Temperatures vary between max 18°C in winter and 28°C in summer, averaging some four or five degrees cooler than the surrounding lowlands. Because of this relatively large temperature difference in close proximity to the city, Tamborine Mountain proves to be a popular destination for city-dwellers, coming up the mountain in winter to celebrate Christmas in