Mt Tamborine, is not famous for tamborines! I think it’s famous for its wines. And there’s also a pie shop who claims they won a competition for best pie. So we tried a pie, pumpkin spinach pie… to tell you the truth…it tastes like currypuff.
Mt Tamborine is about an hour drive from Gold Coast. I slept half of the way, until I had to wake up again to look at the map and give directions to the main town. We have a GPS, but GPS doesn’t really show you where the tourist attractions are, so we got a tourist Mt Tamborine map from the hotel. I was nearly trying to curse the map the whole time we were driving around the mountain. The map is so terrible. But we managed to cover the main attractions up there.
The main town is just along a 500 meter stretch of road, with 2 rows of “shops” (unique looking houses I would describe it). That’s it. Very quaint. Like the shop above, feels like a house fit for Barbie.
And this shop which is built to look like a cuckoo clock:
And inside the shop is full of them, from cuckoo clocks, to grandfather clocks, to mini mechanical music boxes. I can’t imagine how to choose which clock you want to buy, everyone of them has it’s own uniqueness.
I found this one quite interesting. Even dogs have a place to pit stop. I wonder after one dog pee on the post, will another dog pee on the same post? since the territory is claimed?
Next, we went to the Glow Worm cave at Cedar Creek. While waiting for the guide to bring us into the cave, I was acting very jakun at this tree. A man who was standing nearby said it looks like a magnolia. I was like wahhhh, didn’t know the flower is so big (jakun).
The lake in Cedar Creek:
We asked about this Glow Worm cave at our hotel information counter, and the man said “Oh, you have to make a booking, this tour only runs at night”. Clearly this man has not been to Cedar Creek Glow Worm cave. It only runs during the day!
Oh yes, another tip, get a discount booklet from the hotel you’re staying or anywhere you can find one, because there are discount coupons inside, and it covers most of the attractions in Gold Coast. Tickets to see the glow worms is AUD10 per person, we used a discount coupon, we get AUD2 off per person.
Apparently, they made a manmade cave. And they get the glow worms from a real cave, and put them in their manmade cave, and manage the humidity, bring them food, etc…
You have to sit through an introductory video about glow worms.
And then, you get to go in the cave to see them.
Note: picture below is not taken by me, and this picture looks more spectacular than the one we saw because of the amount of glow worms. Picture below is a glow worm cave in New Zealand. But it’s close to the one we saw.
It pretty amazing when we entered the cave. It’s like walking into space with all the stars around you. Only female glow worms emit light, and it’s not their head which is shining, it’s their butt! The brighter the light, the bigger the butt! They make these silk threads and sticky droplets to capture and eat the insects attracted to their glow, which they then feed on.
Next, Thunderbird Park! We saw alot of people camping here.
I was very keen to try the Adventure Parc. But Mat wasn’t so keen, so we decided to just see look see look.
It looks like a boot camp on trees.
And then there’s this shop called the Rock Shop.
If you want, you pay a sum, then go pick rocks, then ask them to cut the rock in half, and you’ll find that the rocks have this marble like patterns and crystals in them.
Mt Tamborine is the highest point of Gold Coast. There wasn’t really a proper lookout spot on Mt Tamborine. We drove round and round and this was one of the 2 perfect spots we could find to see the skyline of Gold Coast.
I was freezing a little on this day we went up Mt Tamborine. I asked the locals there whether it’s usually this cold. They said no, and today was really unusual. Lucky I brought along my winter jacket in the car.
Next post, Byron Bay.
Dear Friends, Happy Happy Halowen!!!