Saturday, 17th December 2022

Oceania
December 17th 2022

Published: December 17th 2022

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RBandSue

1. Road to Rainforest

The 'two way' road up to Lamington National Park

The weather today was due to be a bit cloudy and turning very windy in the afternoon, so we decided to jump in the car and head inland to do a tree top walk. We had tried to do this previously way back in our trip when we were travelling along the great ocean road, but found it was closed! There were two options near to the Gold Coast. O’Reilly’s Tree Top Walk in the Lamington National Park, and the SkyWalk at Mount Tamborine.

We set the sat nav on the phone to O’Reilly’s, it was about a 90min drive which isn’t too bad. The route was smaller roads, no motorways, which we prefer. The sun came out, we had the windows down and were enjoying the drive. We spotted one of the creative post boxes, made into a dog – they’d made the full body and legs as well! Then we got the feeling we were driving round in circles….. this was confirmed when we spotted the same dog post box again! At this point we realised that we’d not turned the volume up on the phone and had missed a turning so it was getting us to turn

2. A Crimson Rosella

A crimson Rosella and a green bird at O'Reilly's

around!

Once we got onto the right road and turned up the volume on the phone, it was plain sailing. Once you were clear of the Gold Coast, which is a massive area, and headed to the surrounding mountains, there were many signs warning of very steep roads, unsuitable for lorrys/coaches/caravans e.t.c. They weren’t kidding! They were pretty steep and at times were down to a single lane. We eventually got to O’Reilly’s and found it was quite a large place. In addition to the tree top walk, which is free to do, they had bird feeding (for a cost). There was also a retreat with places to stay, segway tours and many different walks ranging in distance.

From the main area, you walk past the bird feeding area, with loads of crimson rosella’s and some other very colourful tiny birds. They weren’t interested in you unless you had food though! There was also a sculpture and a replica plane.

On the way to the tree top walk, you passed by a strangler fig tree. The strangler fig actually starts it life in bird/marsupial poop, they eat the seeds then as it passes through it gets left

3. Inside Strangler Fig

Looking up inside a hollow Strangler Fig tree

on tree branches and starts growing on what is known as the ‘host’ tree. It drops it’s roots down until they reach the ground and keeps doing this until it’s surrounded the original tree. At some point it gets so big, it kills the host tree which then rots down inside it and continues to nourish the fig until it eventually fills the void with more roots. This tree was still hollow inside, and you could climb inside it – but it was busy with a tour when we walked past so we decided to continue on.

The tree top walk was great, it’s a one way system as it’s quite narrow, there’s around 180m of wooden suspension bridges separated into 9 sections which are up to 16m above the ground. Part way round there’s a ladder you can climb to a couple of platforms, the first takes you to 24m high, the second takes you up to 30m above the ground, the platform sizes were limited so only 3 people were allowed on the first one at the same time, and 2 on the top one.

Roy headed up (I decided I was high enough already!) and

4. Lamington Walkway

One of the wooden suspension bridges, 16m up, at Lamington

while he was up there a lady with three young daughters arrived and started heading up, eldest daughter first. At this point about 15 people from a tour group had arrived and filled the tiny base platform (which also had a load limit, was not rock steady and so was moving quite a bit at this stage!). Then the 2^nd daughter had second thoughts part way up the ladder so they had to climb down again, just as the tour guides told the massive group that they had to move along as they would’ve have time to climb the ladder (thank goodness for that!).

Thankfully my little platform was now much emptier and the daughters had vacated the ladder to allow Roy to get back down! We carried on around the suspension bridges until we were back on solid ground again.

There was a botanical garden section a little further on so we had a quick wander round there, but it was quite over grown and there were no signs/directions so it was easy to get lost! We headed back and decided to take another look at the fig tree, which was now empty so Roy crawled into

5. Looking down, Lamington

Looking down from the 30m high platform, accessed by 14m of ladder

the hole and took some photo’s. I poked my head in and looked up which seemed like a much more sensible way to do it!

As we were right by the tree top walk again, we went for another loop around it – just because we could!

On the way back we had a look at the plane and the sculpture and found it was related to a plane crash in the area in February 1917. They sent out search parties but were unable to find the wreck after a week of searching so gave up. A local man called O’Reilly, set out on his own after they gave up and left and after a few more days, found the body of a man at the base of a waterfall. It turns out he was one of three survivors who had left the other two to try to get help. Once he found this man, he knew he must be close and spotted a burnt tree in the distance, he headed that way and sure enough, found the wreckage and the 2 remaining survivors. They’d survived by catching water in a flask. Took a lot of time and

6. Rainforest Walk

A walk through the Rainforest floor in the botanical gardens, 920m above sea level

effort to rescue them after they’d been found, needing several local farmers to help carry the stretchers to get them to safety. It was a really interesting story.

We set of for Mount Tamborine next, which took us back out the same road. We stopped off at Kamarun lookout and you could see for miles in all directions which seemed like the ideal place to have our lunch.

It only took about 20mins to get to the Skywalk, you had to pay for this one as it was a privately owned walk but it wasn’t too expensive. This one had around 300m of steel walkway and a cantilever viewing platform. The walk was 1.5km in today, so not too far.

You started off on the high tech steel bridges, so nothing like the rustic wooden planks and chains of the last one! Some parts of this were pretty high up! They again had a one way system, green arrows out, red arrows back (obviously there was one family who decided this didn’t apply to them!). The end of the walkway led to a gravel path where there was a viewing platform of the creek running through the

7. Looking Down on Canopy, Mt Tamborine

Looking down on the middle canopy at the Mt Tamborine walk

forest.

You head back along a gravel path again which climbs up to the cantilever platform which sticks out 50m into the forest taking you 30m above the ground below. This was very wobbly when a few people were walking on it!

After that it was back to the gravel path to make your way back to the entry point and out through the shop which had paintings for sale by a local artist. There were some lovely ones but they weren’t cheap and would’ve have been easy to carry back!

Time to head back to the Gold Coast, so we set the sat nav and headed back, it took us through Gallery Walk which was a bustling little town with distilleries, wineries, fudge shops as well as gallery’s. The return route we chose also took us past the Rotary Lookout, which was a very, very steep area of grass in the Robert Sowter Park given views for miles across the mountains.

We also spotted another mailbox, this time in the shape of an Emu – and we managed to get a photo of this one to show what we’ve been talking about.

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