A Year of Work and Exploration in Australia: Springbrook National Park and other Gold Coast adventures

Our last travelling blog post ended with us arriving on the Gold Coast in a severe weather warning. Well, that day we decided that our best course of action during such a massive rainstorm was to...head up into the mountains.

We drove up into Springbrook National Park at around 5pm in the evening on Thursday afternoon. We'd spent the day exploring Surfer's Paradise (getting pancakes, visiting some attractions such as Ripley's Odditorium and the arcades, popping over to Burleigh Heads - a famous surf spot that, due to the storm, was completely a no-go) and then went up to a campsite called The Settlement in Springbrook.

Charlotte in a cage at Ripley's

Laser Maze and Charlotte at Ripley's

As you can see from the map, it is very, very much isolated! When we arrived it was pitch black and pouring with rain, lightning was illuminating the campground and the ground was sodden. We had the best facilities - long-drop toilets and the world's slowest BBQ! So for that evening, instead of going out to see the glowworms as we'd planned, we stayed put in the van and watched a movie. Good thing we decided to stay, as we found out the next day that the roads had been completely flooded and trees had been uprooted everywhere!

Trees everywhere. So Charlotte drove directly through them. And adorned our van with foliage.

When we woke up, we woke up to the first sun we'd seen in 3 days. So we explored the national park!

The Settlement's kitchen area

The van, transformed into a clothes drier

Purling Brook Falls - 60m, and post-torrential rain

A creek. Charlotte decided to try some advanced photography here.

Springbrook Natural Bridge - a natural stone arch which has been carved by the torrent of water from the waterfall above. This cave, at night, is illuminated by glowworms and occupied by bats. This photo is ours. The one below isn't - but shows the worms at night!