Brisbane to Gold Coast via the Ranges

The road

The direct route from Brisbane to Gold Coast takes 75 minutes on the M1. This one takes the rest of the day and crosses three mountain ranges instead of bypassing them. The run starts with Tamborine Mountain Road - a tight sealed climb from the coastal plain to the McPherson Range escarpment at 500 metres. The plateau at Eagle Heights gives one of the clearest views of the Gold Coast skyline from above, which usefully demonstrates how little of the hinterland most visitors ever reach. From Tamborine the road descends to Canungra, a small beef and macadamia town that sits at the western entrance to the Gold Coast Hinterland national parks. The Nerang-Murwillumbah Road south of Canungra is the main event - a long valley run through the Numinbah gorge where the road follows the Coomera River between fig-draped escarpment walls. The gorge section between the Beechmont Road junction and Natural Bridge is the best sustained driving in southeast Queensland: sealed, smooth and almost entirely devoid of the tourist traffic that crowds the Tamborine plateau. The climb to Springbrook heads south before Springbrook Road switchbacks east across the plateau and descends through multiple gear changes into Currumbin Valley and the northern Gold Coast. Total distance from Brisbane CBD to Surfers Paradise via this route is 170 kilometres.

The region

The Gold Coast Hinterland covers the McPherson, Albert and Darlington ranges immediately west of the Gold Coast coastal strip. These ranges form the eastern edge of the Great Dividing Range in southeast Queensland and contain some of the best-preserved subtropical rainforest on the continent, much of it within the Gondwana Rainforests World Heritage Area (Springbrook, Natural Bridge and Lamington sections). Mt Tamborine is the most accessible of the hinterland ranges from Brisbane, which makes it a weekend day-trip destination as much as a driving road. The Numinbah Valley between Tamborine and Springbrook is less visited and consequently better: a narrow agricultural valley floor with a river at the bottom and escarpment walls on both sides.

Before you go

Fuel at Canungra and Springbrook township. Tamborine Mountain has cafes and a distillery in Eagle Heights - plan for a stop. The roads are sealed throughout and open year-round. Springbrook Road can be slick after rain; the descent into Currumbin Valley is steep enough to warrant care on a damp surface. Allow a full day for the run including stops. Return to Brisbane via the M1 takes about 90 minutes.

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