It was a glorious weekend so we decided to try and venture somewhere new. We have visited lots the major tourist attractions on the Gold Coast but having a good look on a map showed lots of smaller green places that might be worth checking out.
Palm Beach Parklands seemed to fit our requirements and didn't disappoint; it is only a very small area but full of history and activity.
The park even has its own koala as part of their "Animals with Attitude" sculpture trail. This is one of about 30 scattered all over the Gold Coast, originally done to raise money for wildlife conservation.
The traditional custodians of the area are the Yugambeh people. I can only imagine that these same fish that we saw in the water where we swam have been around since the Yugembah people were the only ones here.
The whole area used to be very unstable during the early years with cyclonic seas constantly changing, eroding and silted up the creek mouth. There are stories of dangerous quicksand with people and animals getting stuck while trying to cross the creek entry at low tide.
The Currumbin creek was used to send logs downstream from logging operations up in the Currumbin Valley before they were joined together as rafts and floated all the way to Brisbane. The logging has mostly gone nowadays and tourism has become the major industry.
There was also a small island before the rock walls and groynes were installed to try and protect the foreshore.
