AUS 3-4 19/10/09 18:39 Page 40
knowledge australasia
ttglive.com
Queensland
I’m not a
celebrity. . .
but get me
out there!
Dave Richardson visits Queensland’s rainforest and
Gold Coast to check out where Ant and Dec – and their
attention-seeking celebs – spend their winters each year
The Skywalk is a good way to see the rainforest in comfort
O
K, I’m not a fan of I’m a Celebrity… helicopter to take him back to the coast. The
but even I would watch if I steep and winding road runs along a ledge as as Australia’s Florida, it runs for about 40
thought the stars might suffer the it climbs up to 900 metres, and there was miles and takes in theme parks including
fate of one poor visitor to the frost on a winter’s day in June while the Sea World, Dreamworld, Warner Brothers
rainforest (it isn’t really a jungle). coast hits about 20C. Movie World and Wet’n’Wild.
Needing to relieve himself, he grabbed O’Reilly’s started as a dairy farm and Most of the high-rise is concentrated
a handful of leaves to use as toilet paper guest-house in 1926, but is now a resort and around the biggest resort, Surfers Paradise,
without realising they were from the includes new stand-alone villas. On a canopy which lives up to its name with hundreds of
dreaded gimky-gimky tree. The leaves are walk you can spot wildlife, including surfers out on a good day. Here you’ll find
covered in tiny, razor-sharp spikes, and what possums and a tiny mammal called a sugar all the discos, boutiques and bronzed bodies
they did to him can’t be repeated in print. glider. But the real stars are feathered, you could wish for, and many big hotels.
including bower birds, which build gaudily The tallest is Q1 Resort & Spa, which
Rainforest decorated nests to attract a mate. claims to be the highest residential building
I heard this story on a guided walk at And yes, there are snakes. Some of the in the world. You can see as far as Brisbane
O’Reilly’s, a rainforest resort about 90 most dangerous look unremarkable and from the observation lounge.
minutes’ drive inland from the Gold Coast. harmless, and there’s a resident python I could see Q1 in the background almost
I’m a Celebrity is filmed near here at a closely that’s really quite chummy. Our guide everywhere I went, including far out in the
guarded location in Springbrook national pointed out a large bulge halfway along the ocean on a trip to watch humpback whales.
park, but O’Reilly’s offers a far more genuine python, and on touching it I could feel the
experience. The programme has brought in backbone of a recently swallowed possum.
crocodiles to test the celebs, but the nearest Dame Edna Everage, eat your heart out.
wild crocs are hundreds of miles north in
the Queensland tropics. Gold Coast
But even here in southern Queensland, I’m a nature lover, but after a chilly night
you don’t go in the rainforest alone unless at O’Reilly’s I was pleased to see the tower
you really know what you’re doing. blocks of the Gold Coast as I drove down the
The drive up into the rainforest is scary in following day.
itself; one wealthy visitor was so un-nerved This is where the celebs, Ant and Dec T
o
urism Queensland
by the experience that he summoned a included, come to recover. Often described Rainforest retreat: O’Reilly’s guest-house
40 23.10.2009
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