Uncover the best Gold Coast bush walks

Lace up your boots and head out on an adventure, big or small, with these Gold Coast bush walks.

The Gold Coast tends to conjure images of glitzy high rises, vast malls and casinos, and debaucherous nightlife. But slink away from Surfers Paradise, and head west, and you’ll uncover a whole new side to the region. The Gold Coast’s hinterland is in fact recognised as one of the most biodiverse regions in all of Australia, and there’s no better way to explore it than with a bush walk. Here are four of the best.

Cougal Cascades, Currumbin Valley

Fitness level: easy
Distance: 1.6 kilometre return
How to get there: a 50-minute drive from the Gold Coast

No matter your age or ability, the walk to Cougal Cascades is an easy feat. To reach the waterfalls, sheltered by abundant greenery, it’s only 800 metres on a sealed walking path, which starts right at the car park and traces the lazy Currumbin Creek. Even families with prams, or assisted wheelchair users, can access the falls and the beautiful rainforest walk that leads there. More agile visitors that are longing for a cooling dip can clamber down to the swimming hole where the Cougal Cascades fall; otherwise drink in the views from the wooden viewing platform.

Part of Springbrook National Park, the subtropical rainforest that you’ll stroll through is home to plenty of animal life, including kookaburras, eastern whipbirds and the land mullet (Australia’s largest skink). And those who choose to venture on past the cascades can survey the partially restored remains of a 1940s-era sawmill.

The walk to Cougal Cascades rewards.

Burleigh Head National Park, Rainforest Circuit

Fitness level: easy
Distance: 2.3 kilometre return
How to get there: a 20-minute drive from the Gold Coast

Bar one steep section in the middle, this circuit in the Burleigh Head National Park isn’t too demanding. And with the views this 45-minute walk promises, you’d be a fool to miss it. A verdant headland, blanketed in tussock grassland, pandanus groves, eucalypt forest, and coastal heath, the dense greenery gives way to peeks of the sweeping sugar-white stretch of shoreline, lapped by turquoise waters, that seems to unfurl as far as the eye can see. And it’s not just the flora that’s a drawcard to this little pocket of coastline: look up and you might spy white-bellied sea eagles, or look out to the ocean and you may see whales splashing around offshore come winter or spring.

Known as Jellurgal, or ‘Dreaming Mountain’ by the Yugambeh language-speaking people – the traditional owners of this parcel of land – you can also take a walking tour of the headland in the company of one of the traditional custodians.

The walk gives way to peeks of the shoreline.

Gold Coast Hinterland Great Walk

Fitness level: hard

Distance: 54 kilometres

How to get there: a 90-minute drive from the Gold Coast

Only the most committed hikers and bushwalkers need apply for this multi-day hike. Starting at the Green Mountains section of Lamington National Park and ending at The Settlement camping area in Springbrook National Park, this grade four track links two of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia via the Numinbah Valley and traverses a number of different habitats.

Set aside at least three days to cover the distance, take on the steep ascents and descents, and take in the beautiful scenery. You’ll weave through subtropical and temperate rainforests, spot wildflowers galore come spring, eye strangler figs wrapped around trees, and cross burbling streams.

Enjoy two of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia.

Stinson Retrace

Fitness level: hard
Distance: 35 kilometres
How to get there: a 90-minute drive from the Gold Coast

Those with a sense of adventure will fall for this walk, which leads hikers through the thick of Lamington National Park’s subtropical rainforest. Promising historical intrigue and challenging terrain in equal measure, this 35-kilometre hike traces the movements of one of the most famous rescue missions in Australia and features a plane crash site with wreckage. In 1937 a Stinson airliner crashed into the mountainside, and was discovered by local man Bernard O’Reilly around a week later; he helped to locate the two remaining survivors, and the graves commemorating the four men who lost their lives remain here.

Beyond the walk’s morbid history there’s also plenty of fauna and flora to see here: walking stick palms festooned with pillarbox red berries, towering ghost gums, prickly lawyer vines. And en route you may even chance upon bowerbirds, snakes, and, if you’re lucky, a red-necked pademelon.

Among the region’s lesser taken routes, this 35-kilometre hike (which you should allow 12 hours for) can be completed within one day if you set off before dawn, but it’s advisable to plan it as an overnighter if you can, setting up camp at one of the handful of clearings.

Throughout the year, the folks at O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat organise guided walks of the Stinson Retrace; keep your eyes on its events page for further details of upcoming opportunities.

Hike through the thick of Lamington National Park’s subtropical rainforest.

For more great travel tips and itineraries read our Ultimate guide to Gold Coast holidays.