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| ATV Adventures offer quad bike thrills with a rural viewTHIS, I thought as we hit our first hill, makes bushwalking seem like it's for the birds.Sure, it's not the tranquil feeling you get hiking through unspoilt country, but it's certainly a lot easier on the legs. It can also be, and as a die-hard hiker it's difficult to admit, a lot more fun too.I'm on a quad bike exploring a 240ha property in the Gold Coast's beautiful Numinbah Valley. Walk the famous Ship's Stern circuit at Binna Burra and look out across the rolling hills of green and this is the land you'll see below you.Todd Wilton admits setting up the all-vehicle terrain tour business six months ago wasn't a flash of original inspiration. Rather, it was the decision to copy a tourism operation that worked elsewhere, notably in New Zealand where any venture likely to increase a traveller's pulse rate is operating somewhere within spitting distance of Queenstown.Why hadn't anyone done this before, he wondered. And after months of trying to set up a business on the Gold Coast, he discovered the answer. It's because it is difficult to organise. You can't take quad bikes through state forests or national parks. So if you want to take adventure seekers for a four-wheeled spin, where are you going to take them?He was on the verge of giving up the idea when he made contact with a family of farmers who have been on their property at the base of Lamington National Park for four generations. And the location couldn't be better.The vehicles come in two types. There is the standard quad bike, which basically looks like a motorbike with four wheels. The bikes you use on ATV Adventures are automatic, so all you have to worry about is going and stopping.There are also two four-wheeled vehicles, which look a little like a golf cart on steroids. They can carry a driver and a passenger and are popular with families where the children can go along for the ride.After a safety briefing, we begin our half-day tour. Starting off, it takes a while to get used to the bike which bounces, slides and squelches over everything in front of it.The first hill you hit, you get a sensation that you're going to flip backwards. But that passes, and the more familiar you become with the vehicle beneath you the more fun you begin to have.We travel around a paddock, up and down hills and through a mud hole that's deep enough to half-submerge the wheels. Then it's time to cross the Nerang Murwillumbah Rd and we do that in style.We drive through a tunnel under the road and encounter the Nerang River in a situation that's like the children's story. We can't go over it and we can't go under it. So, we must go through it.We're on a good day and manage to stay dry. Last week, when the water level was a bit higher, Todd had cold river water pouring down inside his boots.This is a working farm, and the cows look rather bemused as we make our way through the paddock. A couple of times, wallabies dart out of the bush and jump off at the sound of the bikes.We stop for morning tea with a view money can't buy of Ship's Stern, Egg Rock and, further to south, Mt Warning peering through the peaks.By now, my confidence is increasing and I start to relax as the bike goes up steep slopes, down others and along the flats and bumps inbetween. At another stop, we leave the bikes behind and take a short stroll into the bush to see a huge strangler fig that's been there so long the host tree has long since rotted away underneath.Then it's back across to the paddocks on the eastern side of the road where we find steeper slopes and an even bigger mud hole. This is four-wheel driving where the vehicles are small but the fun is just as big. And you don't have to go to New Zealand to take a quad bike through mud, slush and past bemused animals. |
