Mum came up to Brisbane on short notice, which was perfect as I was unemployed. We decided to take a mother-daughter road trip to do some camping and bush walking, something we are both passionate about.
We started off with a couple of nights at the Gold Coast Holiday Park where we lounged around the heated spa, read and relaxed.
After heading back to Brisbane for a couple of days, we drove up to Mount Tamborine in the Gold Coast Hinterlands. Unfortunately as we got there all of the little shops were closed or closing so we didn’t get much time to do any shopping. I still managed to purchase a 6 pack sampler of MT Brewery’s beers and we bought some homemade fudge.
We left Mount Tamborine early and drove to Binna Burra Mountain Lodge, which is part of the Lamington National Park. The drive took us through some lovely scenery and cute isolated villages with spectacular views. Once we got to Binna Burra we set up and went for our first walk. We got through the Caves Circuit and part of the Bellbird Lookout Track.
Once we got back from the walk we discovered we had neighbours where we hadn’t had any before. A bunch of blokes had set up camp next door. They were lovely and seeing that we were having trouble with our fire (we learnt the wood we had wasn’t great) gave us a box of fire lighters and some of their wood. As a thank you we brought them over some fudge and they invited us to join them. Mum and I shifted our chairs over and sat with them drinking and chatting for the next few hours before heading to bed a little tipsy.
The next morning we got up and left early to do the Coomera Circuit walk, 17km’s of rainforest, creeks, waterfalls and bush. We did it in 6 hours rather than the 7 hours the map told us it would take. We took some lovely photos and once back at camp we ate and retired early.
On Sunday morning we woke up early and went on a short 1.2kw rainforest circuit just to stretch out our aching limbs, on the return we packed and left and headed down south to Mount Warning.
Once we have crossed over the NSW border and had gotten off the Motorway, we found that the area around Mount Warning is simply beautiful. There was picturesque sugar cane fields with the stunning Mount Warning silhouette in the back drop. We drove through the cute little town of Murwillumbah and onto the road leading up to Mount Warning Holiday Park, which is where we were camping.
The campsite we picked was lovely, completely surrounded by trees and birds. It was really hot, which after Binna Burra was a nice change. Once the sun dropped it got cold quickly but by that time we had a lovely little fire going strong. We had dinner and packed up so that we could just get up and go at 4am to climb Mount Warning to se the sun rise.
All night there was thunder and when we woke up at 4am there was lightning and it started to rain. We went back to sleep and got up at 6am instead.
It was a hard slog up the mountain, especially at the end where you had to pull yourself up by chains to get to the top. Once at the top the view was lovely, when the clouds cleared. We sat there for a while, took some photos and descended. The whole trek took approx 5 hours. Since this was the end of our trip we packed up and came back to the Gold Coast Holiday Park for some R&R before heading back to Brisbane.
We had a lovely Mother-Daughter bonding experience, I cant wait to do it again!
One Saturday we packed a picnic lunch and drove down to Wellington point. We circled the crowded car park a couple of times before finding some empty parks. Hopping out, we sat ourselves down on a grassy area off to the side and looked out over Stradbroke Island. After a mug of vino (yes mug, we were packing light), we walked around the small picnic area and over the sandy walkway.
a girl, a 4wd & a trailer 