My fourth birding excursion was to O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat. It is 2 to 2.5 hours south of Brisbane and my bird host was Giovanna. She is originally from Germany by way of the New York City and Knoxville Tennessee. She was accompanied by a German student over here on a work study trip. They picked my up just after 7 AM and we drove straight to Lamington State Park. Many people on the Brisbane Birds Facebook group had recommended this spot but there was no way to get there by train so I did not think I would be able to go there. I was very happy when Giovanna offered to take Leslie and me there. The birds were plentiful, I saw 19 different species of which 9 were new to me. This takes my semi-official bird count to 701 different birds that I have half decent pictures of. Taking pictures of the birds started out as the only way to make a reliable bird identification. But it has now become my criteria for counting a bird. No picture no entry on the bird list. There are only two or three exceptions and for these the identification was 100% but the bird was too uncooperative. I still intend to get better pictures in the future. We walked along the boardwalk trail and I climbed up the ladders to the two platforms. The first was 75 feet up above the ground and the second was 100 feet up. The second ladder was a white knuckle affair as the ladder leans back ever so slightly. It only takes a slight backward leaning angle to feel like I was about to fall backwards. After we did that trail we stopped off at the canteen for a quick snack. Then we took the car a few kilometers to the trailhead that leads to the Moran waterfall. This was a beautiful waterfall that dropped 260 feet to the valley floor. A picturesque valley stretched out off into the distance. All the while we heard the drone of cicadas and saw them fluttering in the trees. We made it back to Brisbane around 5:30 and Leslie was cooking up a storm. I am the luckiest man in the world to be able to be galivanting all around the world with her!
Heading towards O'Reilly's
Driving up the side of the mountain
Bumper Stricker on the car
There is a small canteen with a gift shop inside it. This is the view from the outside eating deck
The satin bowerbird
Queensland has its own bigfoot
Crimson Rosella lifebird #1
This statue was fenced off, what an odd thing to fence off
King Parrot Lifebird #2
Snack time
Red-browed Firetail Lifebird #3
A replica of a plane that crashed nearby balk in the 1937
Bernard O'Reilly heard the boom and searched for the crash. It was 20 km away and when they finally found the crash site they were able to save two survivors
There are half a dozen Lyrebirds in the area but they are seldom seen
The Australian Logrunner, lifebird #4. This bird is a very antient bird ands the legs pivot to the side like a reptile and not to the front like a more modern bird
White-browed Scrubwren
These trees are huge
Large cantilevered roots
The wonga pigeon lifebird #5
Large beaked Scrubwren lifebird #6
The Eastern Whipbird came right up to us on the boardwalk
Roomy hole in the center of the strangler fig
There is a suspended walkway. No one read the sign so I hung back to let the large group pass
It was a bouncy and wobbly affair
It is way up there
To add to that there was two other platforms that were reached by ladders
Warnings were everywhere
The topmost deck is 30 meters (100 ft), the middle deck is 24 meters (80 ft)
A cage around the ladder is comforting bit is a very rudimentary ladder
This ladder is to the top deck and it is a bit scary. It leans back so it is very tricky and I held on tightly
Most of the decks did not provide much of a view due to the overgrown trees
The top level was right in the thick of the trees. Here was a cute air plant
Some Spanish moss kind of plant
A strangler fig grows around an existing tree eventually killing it. This center tree is decaying.
Inside the National Park is a botanical garden that is a separate entity
Nice gateway
Lots of flowers
Beautiful
A bronze colored skink. It was so still that we wondered if it was a statue
Very cute, 6 inches long skink with blue specks on the side
A green Catbird Lifebird #7
The cutest little yellow robin
Huge trees along the walkway
Peekaboo!
I see you
Tree ferns
A yellow breasted Scrubwren lifebird #8 They never stopped moving so this is a bit blurry
Thanks to the Queensland Forest Service
I did not turn on the tracker at the start but this was a loop from the top left corner
Lots of open valley seen from the canteen deck
An Eastern Spinebill lifebird #9
A weaver nest
Thick jungle
Trees growing at every angle
Nestled in the root structure
The birds were calling from every direction
So many gum trees with exotic bark
Hundreds of types
What is inside here?
A nice cozy room
High ceilings
Giovanna on the left was my birding host and on the right is the German student staying with her
A tiny mushroom
More stranglers
The trees here have no growth rings as there is very little difference between the seasons
A huge hole in the tree
This is Moran's Falls
It is very tall, a 260 foot drop
A waterfall cascading off this extinct volcano
Tiny folks can be seen up at the top
This is the creek that feeds the waterfall
Mud Daubers
Cicadas everywhere
So very loud
On the other side of the falls the valley stretches out
Flower stalks
A fantastic view
A great cool breeze to boot
This is the lookout that I took the pictures of the falls from
Warning!
Warning not heeded
A staghorn on a pretty small branch
The vine in the center of the picture switched trees mid climb
An old tree graveyard
Looks like a slime mold
Shelf fungus
A Regent Bowerbird lifebird #9
Heading back and it started with a long downhill section of road
This was the walk to the waterfall
Cows on the hill
Hugging the side of the mountain on the way down
One lane on the switchbacks
Falling rocks to boot!
