Blogs from Lamington NP, Queensland, Australia, Oceania

Another weekend and a chance to explore some more of the beautiful countryside. This weekend we packed the car up with extra blankets and duvets, thick clothing and thermal underwear to camp over night in a canvas tent in the coldest month of the year! A strange custom has been adopted here in Australia to acknowledge Christmas in July aswell as December as the weather reminds people more of an English Yule Tide?!?!? We still have not got our heads round this idea especially when you see Santa and Christmas Trees decked in all their glory in some towns and shops. Binna Burra is situated in the middle of the McPherson range in the Lamington National Park on the border between QLD and NSW. The views were spectacular of the Gold Coast and the sea beyond ... read more

Bye bye Brisbane, hello Lamington National Park. As it was only a short drive over to the Park we had a bit of a sleep in the day we were leaving Brisbane. With my trusty navigator by my side we merrily headed out of Brisbane with a slight detour to a scenic lookout over the city. The views were pretty spectacular but the sun behind the thick layer of clouds was in the wrong spot so we didn’t get any decent pics. As we had the opportunity we decided to make a quick side trip to Surfers Paradise of the Gold Coast. Perhaps get a bit of surfing in, maybe catch some rays, anything beachy and relaxing. Some bad planning on my trusty navigators part got us stuck in morning rush hour traffic in Brisbane and ... read more

"Queensland: where its beautiful one day, perfect the next". That's the tourism slogan. It was just bad luck that I arrived in Brisbane right at the same time as an unseasonable severe storm warning was announced. I left Brisbane for the Lamington National Park in the worst rain yet, monsoon-style rain. Lamington is a couple of hours south of Brisbane just near the border with New South Wales. It is roughly divided into the Green Mountains section which is mainly rainforest (that's where I would be), and the Binna Burra section which is mainly dry eucalyptus forest. As well as such royally-titled birds as the regent bowerbird and Albert's lyrebird, the park also plays host to a freshwater crustacean called the Lamington spiny lobster, which must surely be a most delicious creature, being named as it ... read more

The Nerang Campervan site wasn't very exciting, in fact it was more of a caravan living area!? We hired a car to drive up the small steep lanes through Lamington National Park. The views of and from the Green Mountains were spectacular! We visited O'Reilley's a couple times, where many people go for rainforest treks. The woven trees were huge, the vines were long and spirally, the bird sounds... bizarre(!) and the cool waterfalls were dazzling! We also saw a python :D many little lizards (and one big one) and fed lots of small parrots :) O' Reilly's is a must if you want to explore an Australian rainforest! The Natural Bridge is also worth a visit, as it is something quite unique and fascinating.... read more

Our next destination was Lamington National Park on the border with New South Wales, which straddles subtropical and temperate climes thus providing a home for many different animal and plant species, some unique to the area. It also has a plethora of walking trails of various levels of difficulty, so has options for everyone from serious hikers to lazy plodders. We stopped at Canungra to enquire about accommodation options, and discovered that there the road forks to the 2 main resorts in the park - Binna Burra and Green Mountain, with 1 hr 20 mins of narrow, twisting roads between the two. Green Mountains looked better from the point of view of range of accommodation as well as recommended walks. There's a famous guesthouse called O'Reilly's at Green Mountain, which was willing to offer us a ... read more