New ‘world first’ Gold Coast attraction wants to freak you out. It works on me

Behind fear, apparently, you’ll find happiness. It’s there, waiting for you, all warm and fuzzy, when you venture beyond your comfort zone.

That’s the motto of the new Happitat Adventure Park, at least – they have these kinds of messages carved in pretty letters into the woodwork here. But allow me, if you will, to surmise: when you do something terrifying and don’t die, the lightness that follows feels really, really good. Here, happiness and relief are one and the same.

Whether you’re a thrill-seeker or not, there’s no denying that these adrenaline-inducing mountain adventures come with a trillion-dollar view. Every mountain has a great view, even if it’s straight down. But of the adrenaline-inducing mountain adventures I’ve experienced – though my pursuit of them has waned since realising I’m actually not going to live forever – the view here takes the cake.

I’ve walked down a dirt track through World Heritage-listed Gondwana rainforest along a kilometre-long trail dubbed ‘the kookaburra path’.

Having lived in a major American city until recently, the sound I missed most from home was that unrestrained, maniacal belly laugh of a kookaburra. Except for those birds – and a chorus of crimson rosellas, king parrots, and whipbirds – I’m completely alone here in the forest.

I reach base camp, eventually, where a handful of guides in harnesses are waiting beside a cafe.

Through the trees I see the view for the first time, and it’s mesmerising. We’re on the edge of Bellbird Clifftop, 400 metres above Numinbah Valley. The valley appears to be a mass of tall rainforest trees like hoop pines and thick palm groves. On the other side is Ship Stern Range, covered entirely in thick green foliage, even taller in elevation than where I’m standing. From here, the ground drops away steeply into the depths of a 20-million-year-old volcanic caldera. When I look off in the distance, towards the east, I can just make out the blue of the ocean.

We’re in Binna Burra National Park, part of the 20,000-hectare World Heritage-listed Lamington National Park in the Gold Coast Hinterland. There are three World Heritage-listed parks up here, barely an hour’s drive from the coast, containing some of the world’s oldest surviving rainforest, with species of flora and fauna dating back 180 million years to the supercontinent, Gondwana. This wilderness is a special part of any Gold Coast experience, but most people don’t know about it.

That’s what I’m ensconced within – ancient forest. But Happitat Adventure Park wants to take visitors beyond the national park and throw them over its edge on three zip lines, and along fixed steel cables and steps, ladders, suspension bridges and tightrope walks across the near 90-degree slopes of a cliff face.

The brains behind the adventure park call it “the world’s first cliff park”. They note visitors can experience a variety of climbs and adventures in a single location – experiences that would normally require travelling to far-flung destinations like Italy’s Dolomites, where the via ferrata concept was born.

Now, don’t be put off by that part of its name, Adventure Park. The Gold Coast might be famous for its theme parks – think Movie World, Sea World, Dream World, WhiteWater World – but this adventure park has nature and ecotourism at its heart, even if it aims to scare the pants off you.

In fact, it’s the first ecotourism business the Queensland government has helped fund as part of a monumental push to become the ecotourism capital of Earth. The government plans to spend $1 billion towards establishing 45 new ecotourism experiences by 2045.

It makes perfect sense that this world-domination pledge is happening here. This is where ecotourism in Australia was invented – the home of Binna Burra Lodge, founded in 1933 and technically the world’s first eco-lodges. It’s also an area that was partially destroyed by the most devastating bushfire in the park’s post-European-settlement history.

A less obvious addition, perhaps, is the Austrian-born former pro snowboarder with the waxed handlebar moustache of a French waiter, who’s the brains – and brawn – behind Happitat Adventure Park. That’s Michael Neururer, who’s here, with operations manager, Tyson Smith, to show how this park actually works.

“We’ve been fairly secretive about what information and pictures are released online,” Smith says. “We want people to get here and see this view and freak out.”

Congratulations, you did that. Once I’m set in a safety harness, and I’ve shown staff I can navigate my way around the practice via ferrata and zip line course at base camp, I’m free to roam Happitat Adventure Park. The whole point of the place is about giving visitors the freedom to wander at will, with no schedule, or waiting in line.

But now I’m out on the edge of infinity and, like Smith says he wants us to be, I’m kind of freaked out.

“Our most profound moments come in pushing through our fear,” Neururer says, which would sound corny except there’s nothing corny about Neururer, who’s about as earnest as any person you ever put your life in the hands of. This concept … everything here … was all his vision.

“I had this in my head,” he says, motioning to his park, and beyond, into space. “I spent months looking for this place, I looked at over 300 sites around Australia. It’s taken me seven years to complete, and I had to tender against the likes of AJ Hackett [international action sports mega-company].”

I choose to do the via ferrata course first, because Neururer tells me it draws out the time I’ll spend on the cliff face beyond my comfort zone. He says I’ll feel just like a rock climber might, minus the safety ropes. I have a harness, and helmet and am attached to steel safety cables, with carabiners. But I can still fall far enough to hurt myself before the carabiner halts my descent. “That’s part of what the via ferrata is about,” Smith says. “You have to be aware: nature can always win, this isn’t a free ride. But, it’s still safer than driving.”

I’m climbing now like Spider-Man might, edging my way along an almost 90-degree cliff face. When I step out on an 80-metre-long suspension bridge which wobbles under my weight, there’s nothing below me. And when I stop for a breather, with my legs dangling from a long, narrow bench, I can look down to the forest 400 metres below.

It’s intimidating, though it’s really just a lesson in concentration. Sure, my knees wobble like a drunkard’s as I walk across a tightrope cable suspended in thin mountain air. But none of this requires previous climbing skills, just common sense. “I didn’t build this for climbers,” Neururer says. “I built this for those who aren’t.”

Neururer intends to make this area of Lamington National Park the world’s best mountain adventure destination. He has 12 more adventures dreamed up, ready to build.

We pass by sections on the rock face where rainforest grows. The rock I’m climbing over may be only 20 million years old, but the rainforest is part of one of the oldest ecosystems on Earth; it provides a record of our planet’s evolution. This sinks in more while I’m hanging on for dear life – my timeline on Earth feels even punier against the near-immortality of this big green forest. Whatever it is, Neururer might be on to something when he says, “Our most profound moments come in pushing through fear”. Just as insightfully, he adds: “This is so much better than hiking”.

The zip line course is another beast entirely. The fear is in stepping off the edge into space, but once you take that giant leap, there’s nothing more anyone can do. I’m flying like a big, awkward bird with arms flailing as I’m spinning and shouting and grinning, whizzing past an entire cliff face at pace, half-a-kilometre in the sky. There are three zip lines, and I ride them all three times (there’s no limit to how many times you can complete the zip line or via ferrata course).

And now in a physically spent, post-adrenal state (I think Neururer might call ‘ultimate Zen’), I look back over the cliffs I’ve conquered to the prehistoric park beyond, and the kookaburras are laughing even harder, and the trees look taller and greener, and the sky-scrapers I can just make out on the horizon look so much further away.

THE DETAILS

FLY
Qantas, Virgin and Jetstar fly to Gold Coast Airport, then hire a car – all major car rental companies operate at the airport. Happitat Adventure Park is an hour’s drive north-west (you can park at their carpark at Beechmont).

STAY
Binna Burra Lodge has cliffside cabins, 500 metres from Happitat Adventure Park, from $325 a night. See binnaburralodge.com.au

DO
A five-hour unlimited access pass to Happitat Adventure Park costs $377 and includes a complimentary return bus ride from Happitat’s car park at Beechmont, 20 minutes down the mountain (if required). See happitat.com.au

MORE
parks.qld.gov.au/parks/lamington

The writer travelled courtesy of Happitat Adventure Park.