Federation Walk - Gold Coast

Yesterday we went for a bushwalk with the Tamborine Mountain Bushwalkers. This walk was lead by Julie who always takes us on an interesting walk somewhere around the Gold Coast area as that is where she lives.

This time Julie stuck to her form and led us to the Federation Walk on The Spit. This walk was built to celebrate the Centenary of the Federation of Australia in 2001 with the first section being opened to the public on the 21 January 2001. The walk has been extended over the years and now reaches to the end of The Spit with a final bonus of a walk out along the windswept rock wall seaway that juts out into the Pacific Ocean.

Being classed as an easy walk bought all the casual walkers out of the woodwork so we had a total of 15 walkers for the day. It takes a bit of organising to get 15 walkers to meet in one spot and out on the trail on time but somehow Julie managed it. We set off from the car park at Macintosh Island and headed over the foot bridge that crosses the creek before braving the Gold Coast traffic to cross the road so as we could start our walk along the walking path above Main Beach.

Without the loss of any walkers we continued on the path and entered the Federation Walking track. This track is a real asset to the Gold Coast, one of the few patches of green set amongst a concrete jungle of high rise apartments, shopping centres and restaurants. The area has been extensively revegetated by the community and Green Corps as a large section of The Spit was burnt out by seven deliberately lit bushfires between 2003 and 2005. It is hard to believe we have such morons living in our community who would burn out such a valuable asset.

From the end of the walking track we ventured out onto the seawall. There was a stiff wind so the sea’s were coming over the end of the wall and crashing against the Lighthouse. To our south was the high rise on Main Beach and just across the seaway to our north was the southern section of Stradbroke Island.

We had smoko out of the wind on the sheltered side of The Spit under the shade of a group of she-oak trees. We were surprised to see a large group of soldier crabs feeding at the low tide mark on the water’s edge.

It was time to head back to Macintosh Island as we were to have a late BBQ lunch in the picnic area so we crossed over to the ocean side and walked a section of the beach back towards the car park. It was a surreal type of walk as here we were walking along a near empty beach with the Pacific Ocean on one side, trees on the other side, towards one of the largest concentration of high rise apartment blocks in Australia.

As pleasant as it was the wind eventually drove us back inland to the shelter of the trees on the walking track. We arrived back for lunch a little later than planned but looking forward to the BBQ chicken sausages that we had only bought the day before on the recommendation of the butcher. He had assured us that they were the best he had ever made. We are normally very traditional in eating sausages and normally only eat the beef ones but thought, here we are out for a BBQ with the bushwalkers so why not try something different. After eating them we wished we had stayed traditional.

Apart from the sausages we had a great day and found a part of the Gold Coast we knew nothing about. We enjoyed it so much that next Thursday we are taking our bikes down and going to do the ride on our mountain bikes. Thanks Julie for a great day and also thanks for the photos. All the photos on today’s blog are courtesy of Julie.