South East Queensland’s getting a whole month-long festival dedicated to exploring the beauty of the ancient Gondwana Rainforest. Fingers crossed those borders open soon so NSW can join in on the fun!

 

For the entire month of March, Queensland’s Scenic Rim will be home to Gondwana Festival, a collaboration between explorers and conservationists alike to celebrate and promote the significance of the ancient UNESCO World Heritage-listed rainforests as they continue to recover from the Black Summer Bushfires. 

The festival stretches from the delicious Lamington National Park to the state’s most iconic peak in Mt Barney National Park and brings together a bunch of events across the parks, from O’Reilly’s Autumn Bird Week to the inaugural Scenic Rim Adventure Festival.

Starting from one of three base camps, Binna Burra Mountain Lodge, O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat, and Mt Barney Lodge, there’ll be events on every day of the month.

For those wanting to explore deep into the ancient rainforests, there’ll be several guided multi-day hikes to tackle, including the historic 3-day Stinson Walk which retraces the steps of Bernard O’Reilly who trekked through Lamington National Park to rescue two plane crash survivors in 1937. 

The Gondwana Festival gives you a chance to discover areas of the rainforest often inaccessible to the public, with many of the guided walks along tracks and to locations exclusively accessible during the festival. 

Keen on the festival but not sure about a multi-day hike? There’ll be plenty of other good stuff going on! Think inspiring speakers, the likes of big mountain climber Michael Groom, live music, bushcraft and survival activities, nature play for kids, and even a film festival set under the stars. 

The preliminary program has just been released, with a bunch more activities and events to be announced in the coming weeks. To be the first to know about advance releases of tickets and program updates, sign up via the Gondwana Festival website.