Day 2 - BCN to Mallorca

After panicking that we’d missed our flight 

because my watch hadn’t updated to Spanish time we had 2 1/2 hrs to get to our flight to Mallorca. An English passenger we spoke to checked his bags all the way through to Mallorca even though we were on Emirates and it’s a Vueling (pronounced Welling) flight to Mallorca. Interesting. 

Picked up bags. Breezed through passport control with vax certificate and the SpTH (Spanish health form) in record time. Queued to get through domestic security all up under an hour from actually landing. 

The plane to Mallorca left 20 mins before scheduled departure time! Took shuttle bus which dropped us at the hotel door.

Typical stone farm house on the way to Port de Pollenca.

Staying at Hotel Uyal, Port de Pollenca. Front sea view with a balcony. It’s lovely and quiet. Dinner at Restaurant Siurell, 5 mins walk from the hotel along a lovely waterfront promenade. I had sea bream (some bones, unfortunately, but I think that is typical of Europe). Ronnie had exceptionally good olives to start and very tender grilled calamari. 

View from our balcony. 

Walked 6.1 km today. 

Day 1 - SYD to Mallorca

Mallorca and Menorca 2022

This trip has been cancelled three times but we are at last departing on our first trip overseas since 2019 because of the covid pandemic disruption. It looks like we will be the early scouts for all of our friends. We are pretty happy with the covid numbers in Spain so fingers crossed.

Mallorca is the Spanish spelling of Majorca.  Since we are going to Spain we thought we’d use the Spanish spelling. Either way the pronunciation is the same.

Michael very kindly drove us to the airport which saved us having to schlep our bags on and off the train at Central and the airport. 

Emirates wanted us here 4 hrs before departure. Security was not at all busy. It took 1hr from when gate opened to get to the gate but we were pretty close to the front and we did online check in. Ron got a random drug check and I was scanned. Depart at 9pm for Dubai.

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.