Rebuild preserves piece of Queensland engineering history

5 August 2026

More than 100 years ago, in one of the first big jobs undertaken by Queensland's then freshly formed Main Roads Board, workers cut a new road through a dense part of the Gold Coast Hinterland.

Affectionately known as the 'Goat Track', the road was built to connect the farming community of North Tamborine to the Tamborine railway station at the bottom of the mountain, providing farmers with better market access for their produce and allowing more visitors to access the mountain plateau above.

Constructed between 1922 and 1925 as one of the state's first bitumen stretches, Tamborine Mountain Road was transformational for the Scenic Rim, improving connectivity for residents and businesses, and helping to quite literally drive tourism in the region.

Over a century later the road remains both a vital local transport link and a popular scenic drive in the south-east, winding through lush rainforest and passing iconic landmarks like Piano Rock.

That importance was underlined in late 2023 when a series of severe storms, including Christmas Eve gales that residents have since dubbed 'the tornado', swept across south-east Queensland.

Torrential rain and destructive winds left a trail of damage across Tamborine Mountain, with landslips and fallen trees badly impacting Tamborine Mountain Road.

Among the hardest-hit assets was a heritage-listed culvert about 200 metres downhill from Tamborine Mountain's popular Songbirds Rainforest Retreat.

Built in the 1920s, the drainage structure is a concrete box culvert with a distinctive stone-and-mortar outlet, resembling an ancient stone wall.

Debris washed downstream during the storm completely blocked the culvert, cutting off the water flow.

As the pressure built up, the culvert displaced and tore into the crossing, scouring around the inlet and damaging both the 10-metre-long culvert and the five-metre-high stone retaining wall at the outlet.

Fixing the site meant balancing two priorities: restoring the road and protecting its heritage value.

Under heritage conservation requirements, the original stone retaining wall was meticulously dismantled by hand, stone by stone.

Each stone was catalogued and put back in place by a specialist heritage stonemason engaged by Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads, to retain the rebuilt wall’s original look and character.

Alongside that heritage work, engineers repaired the culvert itself, installing dual reinforced concrete pipes built to better handle future floods.

Reconstruction wrapped up in early May 2026, restoring safe access along the “Goat Track” and protecting a piece of Queensland's engineering history in the process.

This restoration project was jointly funded by the Australian and Queensland governments under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA).

On Christmas Eve in 2023, a series of severe storms locals dubbed "the tornado" swept across South East Queensland causing extreme damage to Tamborine Mountain Road.

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Built between 1922 and 1925 Tamborine Mountain Road, affectionately known as the “Goat Track", winds through lush rainforest passing iconic landmarks like Piano Rock and remains both a vital transport link and a popular scenic drive.

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Among the hardest-hit assets was this heritage-listed concrete box culvert (seen here before the disaster) with a distinctive stone-and-mortar outlet, resembling an ancient stone wall.

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Debris completely blocked the culvert, cutting off the water flow during the storm. As the pressure built up, the culvert displaced and tore into the crossing, damaging both the 10-metre-long culvert and the five-metre-high stone retaining wall.

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Fixing the site meant balancing two priorities: restoring the road and protecting its heritage value. Each stone was catalogued and put back in place to retain the rebuilt wall’s original look and character, while sporting new dual reinforced concrete pipes built to handle future floods.

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Reconstruction works funded under the DRFA wrapped up in early May 2026, restoring safe access along the “Goat Track” and protecting a piece of Queensland's engineering history in the process.

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