Springbrook National Park animals, forests and the story of the land

Some Springbrook National Park facts first. The park covers 6,725 hectares, split into four sections: the Springbrook Plateau, Mount Cougal, the Natural Bridge and Numinbah.¹ It is one of about 40 separate protected areas, strung between Newcastle and Brisbane, that together form the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage property.^2,6 Together they hold the largest spread of subtropical rainforest anywhere on Earth.⁷

The forest types change quickly with height and soil. On the plateau you pass from rainforest, both subtropical and temperate, into open eucalypt forest and patches of montane heath, often within a single afternoon.⁸ Among Springbrook National Park animals, Destination Gold Coast counts over 100 types of birds, frogs and reptiles, and the forest holds trees more than 2,000 years old.⁹ That variety packed into a small area is what makes the park so rich for its size.

Rainforest is rare in Australia. The Australian Government's World Heritage notes say rainforests cover only about 0.3 per cent of the continent, yet hold about half of its plant families and about a third of its mammal and bird species.¹⁰ The listing also counts more than 270 threatened species, plus relict and primitive groups, for which these reserves are the main home.¹¹ Every walk here passes through some of the most concentrated life on the continent.

Rainforest once covered most of Australia, and the remnants on these ranges are living links to the supercontinent of Gondwana. At the Best of All Lookout, a small pocket of Antarctic beech survives from a cooler past, a living link to the forests of Gondwana.³⁰ The Australian Government says almost every surviving stand of Antarctic beech cool temperate rainforest lies within the Gondwana Rainforests.³¹

The hoop pines at the Natural Bridge go back further still. Their line reaches back to the Jurassic, about 180 million years ago, a period the park names the Age of the Conifers.¹² The World Heritage listing describes these reserves as one of the most significant survival centers for Araucarians, the most ancient and primitive of the world's conifers.³² Brush box beside the Twin Falls track belong to a type dated elsewhere in the area at 1,500 years.³³

What survives is a small share of what was. When Europeans arrived, rainforest covered just 1% of the land, and only a quarter of that rainforest is left.^34,35 The heritage notes list climate change, heavy visitation, fire management and pest species among the greatest challenges for the reserves.³⁶ Keeping to the tracks, cleaning mud off your boots between parks and leaving nothing behind is a small, real contribution.

These ranges are Aboriginal Country, and the names on the map carry that history. Destination Gold Coast acknowledges the Kombumerri families of the Yugambeh Language Region as the Traditional Custodians of the land where it is based, and recognizes their continuing connections to the lands and waters of South East Queensland.^50,51 Warrie, the long canyon walk, takes its name from a local Indigenous word meaning rushing water.⁵² Tamborine means wild lime in the Yugambeh language.⁵³

Across the border, Wollumbin matters deeply to Aboriginal people, and above all to the Bundjalung nation, who know it as a place of sacred ceremony.⁵⁴ Its name is said to mean cloud catcher.⁵⁵ Neither the summit walk nor the Aboriginal Place is open, and the NSW parks service says decisions on the track's future will follow the wishes of Aboriginal custodians.^56,57 Respect that when you take in the view, and treat the mountain as more than scenery.

The settler story is younger. At Mount Cougal, the remains of an old sawmill recall the days when these forests were prized only for their timber.¹⁴ Writers, poets and artists began moving to Springbrook in the early 1900s, and the creative streak shows in the village to this day.⁵⁸ Protection came in stages: the World Heritage Committee first listed the property in November 1986, extended it to reserves in south-east Queensland in 1994, and approved the name Gondwana Rainforests of Australia in 2007.^15,16,17