“I realized something on the ride. I realized if I wait until I’m not scared to try new things, then I’ll never get to try them at all.”

Marie Sexton, Between Sinners and Saints

The walk to the falls was pretty and not too arduous. But we were on a tight schedule as Rob, our guide, had to be back to ferry a heap of guests up to Moonlight Crag for a wedding. Therefore our pace was much faster than we usually do at a waterfall with lots of steps. 

Back up the top, it was off on the Segways again back to O’Reillys.  All went well until about 10ft from the end when Carole came off the Segway. No significant damage, but the knee swelled up over the afternoon, and she was on crutches the following day. We took it quiet for the rest of the afternoon and relaxed in our room before heading down to the dining room for dinner and drinks.

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“Four years after the arrival of the O’Reilly family in 1911 Lamington National Park was declared, effectively isolating the O’Reillys from the outside world. While Lamington wasn’t Queensland’s first national park it is the most significant, and was regularly referred to as ‘Queensland’s National Park”

https://oreillys.com.au/lamington-national-park/

A free upgrade saw us heading off in a lovely little Mitsubishi ASX instead of the Toyota Carolla.  Not that it helped with luggage storage … we had two large suitcases and two rolling camera suitcases, and the big suitcases held more camera gear!  Gone are the days of travelling light.

Canungra

The first stop was O’Reillys Vineyards, Canungra, where we enjoyed a delicious lunch before a wine tasting and bought some wines to take with us.  There was apparently platypus breeding in the creek, but with the skies getting darker and a storm predicted and 34 kms of very, very winding road up the mountain ahead of us, we decided to push on.  It was good that we did, as while Qld doesn’t believe it needs daylight, saying it would really help!  Daylight is around 4.30 am every morning, but it’s dark by 6 pm. 

Goat Track of a Road

Road crews were working on the road repairing damage from Cyclone Debbie. This made some sections narrower than they were already, and it was one lane all the way up.  Not one lane each way… one lane in total!  there were lots of little turnouts to pull over into, but a couple of times, we came around a blind corner with another car coming towards us…. a wine was definitely called for by the time we arrived. (we found out later the road was an old logging track they covered with bitumen!)

O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat is a village-like retreat high up the mountain in Lamington National Park, with a dining room, bar, cafe, discovery centre, church, mini-mart, gift shop, and accommodation options from self-contained through to guesthouse or camping. 

Birds Galore

We had decided to stay in the mountain view rooms with a little back deck overlooking the mountains in the distance.  It turned out to be an excellent choice as each morning and evening, we had such a myriad of birds in the trees around our room that we quickly bought some rice crackers at the mini-mart to attract them closer.

That night we strolled down to O’Reilly’s dining room… amazing food with massive portions…. not really overpriced for what you got, but geez.. our lamb share platter for two could have fed four; we did our best but still left half…. mind you we still made room for the pavlova even if we had to share that too 🙂

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