Coombabah Reserve

Visited: late winter

Recommendation: This is a lovely area to explore with lots of wildlife. It is a tourist attraction for Koala. Definitely worth a detour on a nice day.

The Coombabah Reserve & Mangrove Walk is a part of the larger Coombabah Lakelands Conservation Area, an ecologically significant reserve in the Gold Coast region of Queensland, Australia. The area covers over 1,200 hectares of diverse habitats, including wetlands, eucalypt forests, salt marshes, and mangroves. It is part of the internationally recognized Southern Moreton Bay Marine Park and is known as a significant refuge for a wide variety of native Australian wildlife.

The mangrove walk is a key feature of the reserve, includes a boardwalk that meanders through a mangrove forest. This provides a rare opportunity to get an up-close look at this delicate and important intertidal environment. The boardwalk was carefully constructed to minimize its impact on the marine life and habitats below.

The walk is an excellent platform for spotting a diverse range of flora and fauna. The mangroves are home to frogs, crabs, and various fish, which in turn attract numerous bird species, including both native and internationally protected migratory birds. At the end of the walk, there is a bird hide or observation tower that provides a great lookout point over Coombabah Lake.

The broader conservation area are arguably one of the best places on the Gold Coast to see native Australian wildlife in their natural environment. The reserve is a known stronghold for Koalas and is home to a large population of kangaroos, which can often be seen grazing in the open grasslands. 

Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus)

The wetlands are quite an extensive complex surrounding a creek and the wastewater treatment plant. There's also an animal pound here and even an airport, a little small airstrip. The area is clearly being tagged for tourists as a place to possibly see koalas. We wanted to go to the bird hide out on the water and that was where we aimed to walk to. Having read the map wrong, we in fact ended up walking along the Koala Track, which takes you across a series of open clearings, fields, surrounded by bush.

You can easily see where the Koala are because of the tourists standing underneath the trees. We made our way to the first spot and there was a Koala with a joey wrapped around her. We couldn't really see the joey but you can tell from the photograph above, you can just see the arm wrapped around the mum.  

We knew that they do shuffle about during the day so we were hopeful we might see this one move and get a glimpse of the joey. Not to be, and we wanted to go somewhere quieter. We pushed on to the next series of paddocks where we found several more Koala, either sleeping or shuffling about. 

As we walked we could here lots of butcherbirds, both the pied and the grey could be heard singing away with their fabulous calls. The crows were making an awful lot of noise and drowned out the currawong, which doesn't happen very often!

There were lots of Eastern Grey Kangaroo around. I felt sorry for this female with the joey's feet sticking sticking out of her pouch. It looked rather enormous and at one point she just sort of keeled over on the grass. There were roos from big males to small joeys and it was really nice to see them lounging on the grass. 

Eastern Grey Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus)

Moving down the Koala Track we joined the Jabiru Circuit, having realised we were in the wrong place for the bird hide! The open clearings turned into wetland areas.

Possibly the biggest thrill of the day (I am a birder at heart!) was an obliging Australia Rufous Fantail. It clearly had a patch of bush to defend and moved around chattering away to another fantail that came and went. Not sure if it was defending itself or looking for a mate. I have never managed to get these gorgeous birds out in the open before so it was magic.

Australian Rufous Fantail (Rhipidura rufifrons)

The good news was that on the Jabiru Circuit, there were no other people. The peace and quiet meant we got glimpses of other shy animals like a Lace Monitor sauntering down the path in front of us. Overhead, a sea eagle soared.

We continued to check the gum trees for Koala as we made our way back and found one that was not only wake, but was also eating. This was my first sighting of a wild Koala moving about like this and it was just wonderful. In all, we saw 8 Koala over a couple of hours.