Moving north from Mudgeeraba we caught up some more friends, Louis & Cheryl in Wynnum West (suburb of Brisbane) for a couple of days. We met these guys on our Cambodia & Laos trip in 2016. It was great to see them again.
They took us up to Tamborine Mountain and the famous O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat for a day trip.
Tamborine Mountain was a great little village with the usual tourist shops to browse through and a great coffee stop too.
O’Reilly’s was an interesting and challenging drive with heaps of single lane sections of roads and 10km/hr switch-back bends (maplink). The resort is located in the Lamington National Park.
The first thing you encounter at O’Reilly’s is the Stinson replica plane, which was used in the Australian television movie “The Riddle of the Stinson” (1987) where Jack Thompson played Bernard O’Reilly. The film tells the true story of the Stinson plane crash into the thickly forested valley in the McPherson Range on February 19th 1937, as well as the rescue of its survivors by experienced bushman Bernard O’Reilly and other locals.
The bird-life at O’Reilly’s is incredible with so many different types of parrots creating the best photo opportunities anyone could wish for – check out below.
After lunch we took a stroll through the Booyong Forest Walk . This is truly a great place to visit. We actually had our Outback Imaging (the company I used to work for) EzyScan team meeting getaway at O’Reilly’s in 2016 – great memories.
Many thanks to Louis & Cheryl for a great day out and also welcoming us into their home for a couple of nights stay.
Summing up…
- What did we think? – After a bit of a drive we were really glad we came.
- Was it value for money? – absolutely – only cost was our fuel & meals
- Would we return? – yes
- Overall Score – 10/10
- How do you book a tour? – try TripAdvisor
