O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat - July 2021

 Walked from O'Reilly's via The Centenial Track to Moran's Falls and passed the glow worm gully (where they were hiding) on to The Wishing Tree track and then up passed Mick's Tower and back to O'Reilly's.  6.9 km and 2hrs 15 mins.  We were very lucky with the weather today as it threatened to rain but didn't do so until we got back after lunch. 

Tree entirely taken over a strangler fig.

Morans Falls.

View down the valley from Morans Falls. 

The Wishing Tree - with Ronnie inside. 

The Wishing Tree from the other side. 

                                                 Bridge over the creek. 

O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat - July 2021

Just realised our last solo trip was to O'Reilly's in 2019.  Stopping off on the way to Anne's place. 

On the way to O'Reilly's is Kamarun Lookout where you feel like you are on the top of the world. 

                               Looking from the other direction. 

Morning view from our room.  A very different atmosphere from the last time we were here when it was the year of the fires and the Binna Burra lodge burnt down and it was incredibly dry, sunny and hot in November.  This year everything is wet again, as you'd expect the rainforest to be - leaves dripping with water and mist wafting through the trees. 

Black Booyong the largest buttressed rainforest tree in Eastern Australia can grow 20 - 50 m tall. 

The mist washes out the colours looking up to the canopy where you can see huge birds nest ferns.

O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat

After a wonderful hot breakfast we did a guided walk to picnic rock and Sunshine Falls. 7.6 km

 A brush box estimated to be 700 years old . 

Sunshine Falls. 

After a hearty lunch we did the Python rock track to Python Rock lookout. 4.4 km

O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat

On our early morning guided bird walk (6:45 am) we were lucky enough to get Glen Treflo who has been working as a guide here for 41 years. He makes all photography for stills and for the documentaries for O’Reilly’s. He’s passionate about the birdlife and has them all - including the illusive whip bird - eating out of his hand. He even impressed David Attenborough who came up here to make a documentary up here.

Ronnie’s new friend.

Satin bowerbird. 

Satin bowerbird’ bower. 

Eastern yellow Robin

Yellow throated scrubhen. 

Regent Bowerbird endemic to local area. 

Male and female whip birds. They mate for life.

Then we did the zip line, tree top walk including the higher ladder platforms up in the tree tops and visited the gardens, saw the wildlife encounter and the birds of prey all on our first full day.

O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat

We came up to O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat to break up the trip from Anne and Dennis’s place in Brisbane. It is in the Lamington National Park 2 hrs south of Brisbane. The O’Reilly family bought the land back in 1912 when the Queensland government were trying to entice primary producers to the area. They has lots of requests from the public for food and shelter and after the surrounding area was made a National Park they decided being a guesthouse was more profitable than farming although they had to be self sufficient up here so the kept the farming going to sustain the families and the visitors.

It’s a lovely place. Really quiet and peaceful - the guests are able to spread around a lot.

The first day we had lunch, walked around the area, then afternoon tea and O’Reilly’s champagne at the manager’s greeting then watched the spirit of O’Reilly’s documentary, had dinner and then went on the glow worm tour.

This is what the glow worms look like. Not taken by me as mine didn’t work at all. 

This is what the wall where they live looks like in daylight hours.

As you can see there is a lot of eating going on and the food is fabulous and the portion sizes very generous.