Gold Coast Hinterland Great Walk and Austinville Conservation Area
As part of its Nature-Based Tourism Program, the City of Gold Coast identified the Hinterland Great Walk and the Austinville Conservation Area as opportunities to provide unique visitor experiences in nature. Both needed rigorous assessment and a clear plan before investment could flow.
Blue Sky Trails were engaged across a series of projects to audit the existing walk, designing a realignment to lift the visitor experience, and developing a concept plan for a new recreational trail hub at Austinville that would create a compelling new entry point into the hinterland.
What We Delivered
1. Great Walk Audit and Realignment Design
A section of the 54km Hinterland Great Walk ran along Nerang Murwillumbah Road a compromise that undermined what should be an immersive nature-based experience. We designed a new alignment traversing historic logging and fire trails, graded it under the Australian Walking Track Grading System, and produced construction plans, surface treatment specifications, and indicative costings ready for planning approvals and tender.
2. Austinville Conservation Area: Concept Design
Austinville had been growing in popularity with day visitors, but had no infrastructure to match. Informal trails crossed private land, steep fire tracks deterred casual walkers, and nothing connected the key natural attractions.
We assessed three trail links across the precinct, conducted field evaluations using Trail Vision, and developed a concept plan for a walking network of varying difficulty connecting into the day-use area. The final report included trail specifications, construction plans, indicative costs, and a high-level maintenance program.
3. GIS Mapping and Data Outputs
We captured all the fieldwork data in Trail Vision and delivered as georeferenced mapping files underpinning our report to support environmental approvals, planning submissions, and ongoing asset management.
The Outcomes
This work was all about bridging from a strategic tourism vision into investable trail implementation.
The concept plans and costed designs gave the City the confidence needed to invest and advance both projects through internal approvals and into the market.
A walk worth walking: the Great Walk realignment removes a long-standing road section, replacing it with a route that does justice to one of the Gold Coast’s most significant natural corridors. Safer, more immersive, and true to the experience it promises.
A new destination activated: the Austinville concept plan transforms an informal, unmanaged area into a coherent recreational precinct with a clear path to construction.
Positioned for 2032: this work forms part of the City’s push to establish the Gold Coast as a leading nature-based tourism destination ahead of the Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Why This Project Matters
Behind every well-designed and sustainably built trail is a body of fieldwork, data, and planning that most visitors never see. That foundational work is what turns a vision for a trail into a funded, built, and loved trail.
For the City of Gold Coast, the work at Austinville and along the Great Walk represents exactly the kind of evidence-based planning its tourism strategy demands recreational trails that serve walkers of all abilities, connect people to extraordinary landscapes, and perform sustainably for years to come.
With 2032 on the horizon, the Gold Coast is building something worth visiting. This is part of how that happens.
