Surprising new plans for Binna Burra revealed
Devastated by 2019 bushfires, Binna Burra Lodge won’t rebuild its historic lodge cabins any time soon. Instead, new sky lodges have been built and new plans are underway.
Gold Coast
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As the weather cools and the forests are lush from recent rains, bushwalkers are once again revelling in the natural beauty of Binna Burra.
Set amid subtropical rainforests of Lamington National Park, Binna Burra, 75km south of Brisbane in the Gold Coast’s scenic rim hinterland, was ravaged by bushfire in September 2019.
The iconic heritage-listed lodge cabins on the site were razed, while the luxury Sky Lodges were also within a whisker of being lost.
Binna Burra was closed for a year while the rubble was cleared and extensive construction to stabilise the steep slopes of Binna Burra Road was completed.
Today, two of the four Sky Lodges buildings that were impacted by fire have been rebuilt.
The 42 lodge cabins, however, remain sadly missing, with the Mt Roberts site now a grassy hilltop with 360-degree views.
There are plans to rebuild but Binna Burra Lodge chairman Steve Noakes says it is “some years away’’.
The rebuild won’t be the same and instead will likely feature a central lodge.
It will be a different style but will still, Noakes promises, “pay justice to the spirit of Binna Burra’’.
In the meantime, the hilltop will be used as a function and events location.
It hosted its first event in March – the inaugural Gondwana Festival where guests sat upon 211 log seats, each representing 1000 hectares of rainforest burnt in the Gondwana World Heritage Area.
With Binna Burra now back on its feet and the pandemic restricting many other travel options, it’s a perfect time to explore this natural wonder in our own backyard.
On this occasion, we travel there in the fresh-look Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross SUV that handles the winding ascent with ease and also boasts fancy new features such as heated front and rear seats and an eight-inch touchscreen smartphone-link display.
It’s hard not to marvel at the construction of the new sheer, reinforced mountainsides.
Binna Burra is 800m above sea level and it is a good five degrees cooler by day than Brisbane, with temperatures that plunge quickly at nightfall.
We are grateful to settle into the luxury of our two-bedroom Sky Lodge – we stay in the tower that was completely rebuilt – to warm up by the loungeroom fireplace (it is a gas fireplace that looks exceptionally real).
The real wow factor in these cliff-hugging apartments is the incredible views.
Vast doors in the lounge, an almost full-wall window in the main bedroom and also in the bathroom, provide stunning views overlooking the Numinbah Valley and the prominent 410m-high Egg Rock – known as Kurraragin in the Indigenous Yugambeh language – which is an ancient volcanic plug.
From the balcony, we are at eye level with streaks of red rosellas whizzing past – the emblem of Binna Burra Lodge – and this simply melts stress levels away.
It is also worth every second of lost sleep to get up at dawn to see a truly breathtaking sunrise and morning mist over the Numinbah Valley floor.
Of course, you can’t come to Binna Burra without doing a bushwalk.
We chose the scenic 17.4km Coomera Circuit, featuring waterfall after stunning waterfall, creek crossings, gorges and cliffs.
Five kilometres in, we are rewarded with the cantilevered Coomera Falls lookout where you can watch the Coomera and Yarrabilgong falls cascade into the 160m-deep gorge below.
And this is the perfect time to see it.
After soaking in recent heavy rainfalls that consumed much of the east coast, the forests are in show-off mode – spectacularly green and flourishing and alive with the sounds of thundering waterfalls and birdsong.
But while the forests are lush, the tracks are not muddy.
The numerous creek crossings are passable without getting wet boots.
The birds are happy as a leech on bare bushwalker skin (yes, a couple of leeches were the only downside). Alas, the elusive bright blue and white Lamington spiny crayfish remained out of sight, despite some effort on our behalf to search the crannies of the waterholes.
But, making up for this, on our return and only a few kilometres from the trailhead at the Binna Burra upper day-use area, we were thrilled, if not a little shocked, to see a dingo.
Trotting along the walking trail, it shot into the forest when it spied us and then sat calmly about 15m off the path watching us watching it, for several minutes.
Apparently, dingo numbers have increased in recent years while marsupials such as pademelons have fallen away.
Binna Burra Lodge may not quite look the same without its beautiful lodge cabins but Noakes says there are other plans in the works.
The Teahouse, which is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, is about to undergo a $500,000 development featuring a large open-air veranda (funded by the government Bushfire Recovery Fund).
There’s also Australia’s first commercial via ferrata – an Italian term translating to “iron path’’ – describing cliff-face climbing routes using steel cables, fixed metal rungs, bridges and ladders that will be open by the end of the year.
Also under way are plans for 13 “wild houses’’ – self-contained, mobile, tiny houses on wheels that will be scattered around the landscape.
Current Binna Burra accommodation options include camping in the rainforest campsite and in permanent three and six-bed safari tents.
Sky Lodges are available in studios and one, two and three-bedroom apartments.
Untouched by bushfire, Grooms Cottage Bushwalker’s Bar, the “heritage heart’’ of the site (as the original home of Arthur Groom who established Binna Burra Lodge with Romeo Lahey) is open for light meals, coffee and drinks and makes a fine place to sit with a glass of wine as the sun goes down.
After so much devastation, it is wonderful to see this jewel of Queensland tourism embracing a new chapter and buzzing with bushwalkers once again.
The writer was a guest of Mitsubishi Motors
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Originally published as Surprising new plans for Binna Burra revealed
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