Australian Walk: walks

Burleigh Heads National Park is a scenic rain forested headland at Tallebudgera Creek estuary in the heart of the Gold Coast. in Queensland, Australia.

Burleigh Heads National

Park is a quiet retreat for walkers and wildlife watchers. The

Oceanview Walk (1.2km one way) is a track leading around the rocky headland from Tallebudgera Creek to the southern edge of Burleigh Heads township. You can look at the tumbled masses of six-sided basalt columns, and relax by the creek at Echo Beach. Either return by the same path or via the Rainforest Circuit path and Tumgun Lookout.

This National Park is one of the many celebrated national parks in Australia. The park covers around 25 hectares and is the coastal extreme of an ancient volcano that was active over 22 million years ago.

The Burleigh Heads National Park, extends a peaceful area to the visitors. It houses littoral rainforest that are reminiscent of the Kombumerri people’s culture. Kombumerri were the local people of the region and they knew Burleigh Heads as Jellurgal. The area deemed

Above: Burleigh Beach with tall buildings on the Gold Coast in the background. Below left: You may even see a bush turkey.

As you walk down the park you will also notice fringing mangroves, windswept tussocks or open forest. One can also walk to the top of Big Burleigh. You can also have a bird’s eye view of the northern seascape from the Burleigh foreshore.

For the safety of visitors, sections of this track coastline may be closed during wet weather, due to the risk of rock falls. Check at the QPWS Burleigh Head Information Centre for the latest information on track closures.

The Rainforest Circuit (2.3km return) is a track featuring the Tumgun Lookout. The lookout is a good place to watch for humpback whales splashing offshore in winter and spring.

The Burleigh Heads National Park ocean view walks lives up to its name, offering stunning vistas up and down the Gold Coast, Queensland. Australia.

Where can a hiker find a 4.3km track that winds through mangroves, traces a creek to its mouth, and encompasses a climb through rainforest overlooking the ocean?

The unlikely place is Burleigh Heads, and there are two main tracks to choose from.

Ocean View Circuit

Don’t leave the Coast without walking the Ocean View Circuit. You can start out from the carpark at Burleigh

headland or from the southern entrance at Tallebudgera Creek near the QPWS Burleigh Head Information Centre. This safe and easy track skirts a beautiful stretch of the river teeming with bird and fish life, past Sandy Cove and Echo Beach and beneath the giant basalt columns that form Burleigh headland.

Expect stunning views up and down the Coast on one side and rainforest remnants of Burleigh National Park on the other. Return along the same path back or stretch your stamina a little more on the rainforest circuit.

Rainforest Circuit

From the carpark on Burleigh headland, this track heads up into the rainforest of Burleigh National Park. This one will stretch the calves in sections but the views from Tumgun Lookout will make it all worthwhile. Catch your breath and glimpse whales during the migration season.

The mangroves and the Burleigh Heads National Park represent an oasis of wildlife right in the middle of the city. On the headland, it is not unusual to find bush turkeys, brahminy kites, sea eagles and a variety of fruit-eating birds.

Even a few koalas remain in the area but most grounddwelling creatures have suc

Above left: Great ocean views for the track.

Below left: The track is popular with families.

cumbed to attacks by dogs and cats from surrounding suburbs.

Distance: 2.3km one way, Time: 45 minutes, The pinch: Brief inclines may be a liitle tough for some..

At Burleigh Heads National Park, ancient volcanic columns meet the sea.

The Kombumerri people named this prominent rocky headland ‘Jellurgal’. Today, its northern side is one of Australia’s most famous surfing point breaks. Walk to Tumgun lookout, where migrating whales may be seen. dmire the coastal vista to Surfers Paradise across Burleigh Beach, the venue for many international surfing tournaments.

Burleigh Heads national Park

in Gold Coast is located between Coolangatta and Surfers Paradise and houses the famous ‘Burleigh Barrel’ and other major international surfboard competitions. There are some great picnic areas along with barbeque facilities and playgrounds of the foreshore at Burleigh Heads.

Walk the 1.2 kilometre track through a living museum of plants, many of them rare. See Australian bush-turkey nesting mounds, seabirds and water dragons. Picnic on Burleigh foreshore or relax on Echo Beach. A ramp to the fishing platform provides access for wheelchairs. Visit the information centre to learn about the park’s interesting history.

From Surfers Paradise, travel south along the Gold Coast Highway to Goodwin Terrace, Burleigh Heads. The car park is at the end of Goodwin Terrace. To reach the southern entrance at Tallebudgera Creek, turn off the Gold Coast Highway at the traffic lights near the Queensland Parks & Wildlife Service Burleigh Head Information Centre.

Above left and right: Looking out towards Tallebudgera Creek from the track. Below left: Old trees take a battering from the weather. Below right; The track is flat and easy to walk along.