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Day tour: Rainforests, Glow worms and Wine RATES:
please
click
here
for prices of our tours
(in Australian dollars)
Tours
depart
9.00am
from:
Brisbane
Transit Centre (Roma Street), or from your
city or
southside accommodation, other by arrangement)
Bookings
essential for all our tours.
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The largest colony of
glow worms in the world is not in the national
parks or even a genuine cave, but in a very well-designed artificial
cave, the purpose of which is to take pressure off the natural caves
that have been over-exploited by a constant stream of thousands of
visitors. There is nothing artificial about these amazing little
animals that produce an extremely efficient light, and have been
happily breeding into their thousands. Rainforests, eucalypt forests,
waterfalls, wine-tasting and a delicious lunch overlooking landscaped
gardens add to the day's experience, and you can let us know if you
would like to visit other interesting venues on the mountain.
A walk through the rainforest canopy at Skywalk is our first experience upon arriving at Tamborine Mountain (NOTE: this is an optional extra at additional cost until April 2010, when it will be included as part of the regular tour). This will be a gentle meandering through the treetops and along the forest floor, with interpretation of the fauna and flora of both rainforest and eucalypt forest. Strolling through tall eucalypt forest nearby, we view the Cedar Creek Falls and its series of rock pools.  Now it's time to see
the 'stars' of our visit - those fascinating little glow 'worms.'
They are not the same as the 'glow worms' of the northern hemisphere,
which are the larvae of fireflies (which just to confuse things are not
flies but beetles). Australia has fireflies also (and they're
beetles of courtse), but our glow
worms are the larvae of gnats, and produce an extremely efficient
light, with amazingly little energy waste in heat, and as a group are
found only in Australia and New Zealand. They are indeed so fascinating
that they have been visited by thousands of tourists every month in the
national parks, which is why one national park ranger had the idea of
building an artificial cave for them, to take some of the
pressure off the natural populations. The owners of Cedar Creek
Estate were happy for such a cave to be built on their premises, and
guidance was sought from Claire Baker, who was conducting her PhD
research on local glow worms. She has since headed to California to
engage in important biomedical research using this amazing
ability to produce 'cold light.'
We first explore the cave and watch an interpretive video, then with our eyes now adjusted to the dark, we walk through the glow worm cavern, which now houses the world's largest colony of glow worms (they reached these numbers by themselves, happily breeding away since the first 300 or so were introduced). The cave may be artifical but there is nothing artificial about these little creatures, glowing all around us in their thousands as they attempt to attract tiny insects into their webs.    After local
wine-tasting and a delicious lunch overlooking the beautiful gardens of
Cedar Creek Estate, we head to either Witches Falls (rainforest with
giant fig, palm groves and cycads), or (if the weather is wild or you
are not feeling energetic) the attractive Botanic Gardens. It is
then up to you to decide to spend more time in these lovely locations
or visit the arts and crafts area of Gallery Walk, or other places we
can recommend along the way, before returning to Brisbane.
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