Located midway between Coolangatta and Southport, Burleigh Heads is a headland surrounded by the tourist development of the Gold Coast where the visitor can experience what this coastline was like before the tourist invasion.

Location: 89 km south of Brisbane

Places of interest Tallebudgera Creek; Burleigh Head National Park; Nobby Beach; South Nobby; North Burleigh Beach; Burleigh Beach; Pacific Beach; Palm Beach; Currumbin Creek; The Knoll (Burleigh) Environmental Park; Tallebudgera Creek Environmental Park; localities of Nobby Beach, Miami, Palm Beach and Robina; Fleay's Wildlife Park; Balloonwalk (the first permanently moored, passenger carrying, observation balloon in Australia).

Gold Coast Oceanway

The Gold Coast Oceanway is a 36 kilometre network of pathways along beaches from the Gold Coast Seaway (The Spit) to the Point Danger Lighthouse (Coolangatta). The pathways provide healthy and environmentally-friendly ways for pedestrians and cyclists to explore the renowned beaches of the Gold Coast. The Oceanway provides access to a wide range of coastal environments including spectacular coastal vistas, beaches, headlands, mangroves, dunes and Littoral Rainforest.

Tumgun Lookout

This lookout is actually inside Burleigh Head National Park at Miami Beach area. To reach this lookout, tyou must take a steep, winding walkway to the summit of the hill. there are plenty of mature trees along this walkway, which cool the air down even under hot sunshine. The views of Miami beach area at the north side, and Talebudgera Creek at the south side are worth the climb.

Burleigh Heads Beaches

Burleigh Beach is well known as a fine surfing venue and, as such, it hosts major international surfing tournaments.

Nobby Beach, immediately north of Burleigh Heads, has a surf lifesaving club with picnicking facilities opposite Lavarack Rd. At the southern end of Nobby Beach there is a strip of foreshore parkway (missing at the northern end) and a caravan park at the southern end of Marine Parade, which follows the foreshore. Picnic facilities are located adjacent Marine Parade, almost opposite the end of Santa Monica Rd.

South Nobby marks the end of Nobby Beach and to its south is North Burleigh Beach. A narrow strip of foreshore parkland, decorated with pandanus palms and pines, abuts the beach on one side and The Esplanade on the other. It extends southwards along Burleigh Beach to the actual headland (after which the suburb is named) at the mouth of Tallebudgera Creek.

There are barbecue, picnic and parking facilities at several points, and toilets opposite Second Ave. There is a surf lifesaving club opposite Kratzman Ave and another at the southernmost end of the beach, on Goodwin Terrace, which runs past an ocean pool, more toilets and picnic/barbecue facilties, to a parking area at the northern end of the National Park.

David Fleay Wildlife Park

David Fleay Wildlife Park, on Tallebudgera Creek near Burleigh Head, on Queensland's Gold Coast, is a wildlife park with a difference! You can stroll through natural habitats and visit a nocturnal house to see some of Australia's most iconic wildlife. You'll meet crocodiles, koalas, emus, brolgas, dingoes, dunnarts, bilbies and kangaroos, along with resident platypus, Wally. Explore the park on your own or join the rangers in one of their daily wildlife shows. Most of David Fleay Wildlife Park is suitable for wheelchairs, prams and for those who find walking difficult. You can also explore the nearby Tallebudgera Creek mangrove boardwalk along the mangrove-fringed Tallebudgera Creek.

• More

Burleigh Head National Park

Burleigh headland is a prominent Gold Coast landmark. Within the headland's 27 ha national park you will discover rainforest, eucalypt forest, pandanus groves, tussock grassland, coastal heath, mangroves, creeks, rocky foreshore and beaches. Visitors may glimpse humpback whales breaching in coastal waters during winter and spring, see white-bellied sea-eagles riding the ridge updrafts, or watch birdwing butterflies feeding on rainforest nectars in mid-summer. Tumgun Lookout offers awesome views of Palm Beach and beyond to Coolangatta. To reach the northern entrance of the park, turn off the Gold Coast Highway into Goodwin Terrace. The car park is at the end of Goodwin Terrace. To reach the southern entrance of the park, turn off the Gold Coast Highway at the traffic lights immediately north of Tallebudgera Creek.

• More

Tallebudgera Creek Conservation Park

Tallebudgera Creek Conservation Park is a nature reserve on the south west side of Burleigh Heads. Tallebudgera Creek is a place of cultural significance to the Kombumerri people, and its estuary contains one of the last large tracts of mangroves on the Gold Coast - the rest having been removed for urban expansion. The small estuary at the mouth of the creek is currently a popular fishing spot, and a place to have a quiet swim - especially for younger kids and the less energetic - away from the reknowned surf beaches. The Tallebudgera Creek park, with its walking track, also borders the David Fleay Wildlife Park. The boardwalk forms part of the walking track (1.5 km long) that ends at Burleigh Heads.

• More

Burleigh Arts and Craft Markets

Open the last Sunday of every month til about 1pm along the foreshore, there's some great market stalls. Not just the usual fruit and veg but lots of one off gifts from eclectic to urban. Great to even just look around on a sunny or overcast Sunday morning ,neither the beach just feet away, while munching on a frozen fruit icey, yep real fruit like Mango ices or frozen chocolate dipped strawberries. Many artists come along as well from woodcarvers to painters to buskers so if you're looking for an unusual gift or just a great morning out, make sure to put this market on your list.

Brief history

The area was first settled by whites in the 1880s as a holiday village, and as such, heralded the beginning of the use of the Gold Coast region as a holiday resort.

Origin of name: named by surveyor J. R. Warner in 1840. He originally spelt it Burly Heads. The Aboriginal name for Little Burleigh was Jellurgal and for Big Burleigh, Jabbribillum. Burghley House was the family seat of the famous Cecil family in England. Lord Burleigh, the Marquis of Exeter, and in his political involvements upheld the long-standing English discrimination against Roman Catholics as well as resisting other reforms.