Australia – O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat

We left the rain in Daintree and travelled back to Cairns. After a two hour flight to Brisbane and another two hours driving (in a car I call the Tank, it’s a decrepit Fiat Punto) we have arrived at O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat in the middle of nowhere (actually the Lamington National Park).
It was quite a stressful drive in a clapped out car on hairpin bends and along a narrow ridge road. This coupled with lack of sleep the night before and the worry we wouldn’t have accomodation because the booking agent mucked Dad about, I was shattered and a bit Narky! (Can you tell?)
All was OK though and it’s a fabulous place, our room could hold a dance and our balcony has spectacular views.

So just to orientate you, we have left the tropical Rainforest and travelled a thousand miles south into a temperate Rainforest. It’s a lot colder and dryer here.We are staying at O’Reilly’s Retreat which is quite an up market hotel in a semi remote location. It offers all sorts of wildlife experiences. A lot of the birds are habitualised but it also means we can get birds identified straight off.
We got up early the next morning and went on a short guided walk and then a walk on our own. The birds come in to be fed and this helped us identify a number of the smaller birds. In another area a King Parrot landed and then crapped on Dads hat. I didn’t like them landing on me very much at all and was quite glad to go off on our own.
On the guided walk we saw a Satin Bower bird and it’s bower, in fact this bower was filmed by David Attenborough’s team. Later we saw the Regent Bower bird too from our breakfast table.We walked 5k out to Python Rock in the hope of seeing a Lyre bird and although we heard them they are very difficult to spot.The views from Python Rock are fantastic. Again this is an ancient volcanic landscape.The walk was a bit much for dad, we probably walked in total including around the other side of the hotel about 8 miles. We didn’t really stop just plodded slowly all day. We got in the region of 15 new species’ including the Superb Fairy Wren below.

After dinner we crashed out and both of us were asleep by about 8.30 pm!