The majority of places we’ve visited in Australia have been recommended by Australians. Mount Tamberine and Cedar Creek Falls were no different. Whilst playing our regular evening game of footy at Broadbeach, a couple of local chicks recommended we should pay Mount Tamberine a visit – we took their advice.
For Australia Mount Tamberine is a big mountain – 525m elevation. For me it was a big hill, for the van.. it was definitely a mountain. Signs at the bottom warned not to take unsuitable vehicles (campervans) up due to the steep climb, after 3omins of 1st gear we made the summit with a tale-back of 3miles, but we made it!
It was well worth it when we reached the top – the views of the Gold Coast were amazing!
We made our way to Cedar Creek but by the time we arrived it was dark, we parked up and slept in the carpark. The following morning we were the first people at the attraction, we walked the boardwalk towards the waterfalls and to the view-points. At the main viewpoint there was a big warning sign, ‘No Entry, inement death‘ – the girls had reliably informed us that if we ignored this sign and climbed down the rocks we would reach a lovely plunge pool were we could take a morning swim. And so, without second thought, we went for it. 10 minutes later we were cannon-balling off rocks into a cool fresh plunge pool at the bottom of an awesome waterfall, it also doubled as our daily wash. Returning to the van the attraction had gathered a number of tourists, all OAP’s – we soon realised that Tamberine Mountain was more of a pensioners retreat than backpacker haven. We decided to embrace this, spending the next hour looking for wild-life, Steve Irwin style. We came across a number of lizzards, gigantic spiders and many insects, all of which would probably have killed us with a single bite.
We were enjoying the civilized change and decided on an afternoon of wine tasting at a local winery;
The Cedar Creek Estate Vineyard & Winery & Cedar Creek Cellars. 104-144 Hartley Road, North Tamborine, Qld 4272. Tel; 0755451666. Web; cedarcreekestate.com.au
We were obviously a change to the winery’s usual clientele and the lady working there paid us special attention. After numerous samples of wine and port we left armed with two bottles of Shiraz and a bottle of fine Port.
We planned to dine that evening at a mountain look-out with a bottle of Shiraz and meal of Steak and Blue Cheese – we somehow ended up in a pitch black forest slightly lost though.
After another morning wash at the creek we left the mountain and on the journey home saw some old-timers hand gliding off the summit, very cool.
It was a relaxing trip to Tamberine Mountain, a nice change to our beach bum lifestyle.
