We hiked a few more trails in Lamington Natonal Park, all of them near the lodge, as accessing any other hikes in the park means driving for more than an hour, and the road down is crazy! The first hike was to a tower in the middle of the rainforest. Some of the trees in Lamington are amazing, like this tree in the middle that is completely covered in vines.
This is called “Mick’s Tower”. It doesn’t really feel all that safe, as there aren’t stairs to the top, just somewhat slippery ladders.
The top does give you a treetop view, but you can’t really see much more than other treetops. I was hoping for a better view of the surrounding area.
The best views on the hike are actually at ground level, with some very cool trees you can walk thru.
The hike also includes a suspension bridge. It was nice to be on a hike with so view people. The day prior we had loud kids literally screaming during nearly all of the hike, so it was nice to have some peace and quiet.
The main goal of this hike was the “Wishing Tree”, which is impressive.
Particularly from the other side of the tree! It’s hard to believe the tree is still alive!
We did a little side trail into “Hidden Gully”, which is a gorgeous spot with a creek running through it.
On the walk back to our Villa we walked by the spa, and while we didn’t swim here the infinity pool has a great view!
That afternoon we had one more hike to “Python Rock Lookout”. The sunlight along this section of the trail made for a couple of excellent photos.
The vines around this tree look like they were purposely wrapped in a pattern.
The views at the lookout are stunning.
Once again we had the trail to ourselves, which is hard to believe given the views here.
You even get a view of Moran Falls, which we hiked to the day prior.
One last view from Python Rock Lookout.
Lovely sunset on our last night in Lamington. This shot was from our balcony.
On the way back towards Brisbane we stopped at “Kamarun Lookout”. You can see the Brisbane skyline way in the distance. The weather was perfect!
Mount Lindsay dominates the mountain range views. I’ve seen it for days and a local at the lookout let me know the name.
This is a rare portion of the road that was actually straight. This is a two-way road, with a lot of sections that are one-day, so you are constantly hoping you don’t run into another car on the one-way sections. Reminded us of crossing one-way bridges in Iceland.
One last tidbit from O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat. I’m very curious to know the reason they felt they had to put this sign above the toilet.
On the way to our final hotel at the Brisbane Airport we stopped at the top of Mount Gravatt, as I had read you could see Koala’s in the wild here. First up, another Laughing Kookaburra. They never seem to laugh when I’m around!
We did spot one Koala in a tree. We could barely see him.
The view of Brisbane from Mount Gravatt is excellent.
Our flight left the next morning at 1030, and I was able to get one last aerial view of Brisbane.
Looking south down the coast is Surfers Paradise along an area called the Gold Coast. I visited Surfers Paradise back in 1987, and it was so much smaller, just a beach town. Now it’s filled with skyscrapers.
We passed numerous islands as we flew east. This section of reef extends north from “New Caledonia”. Really beautiful view from the plane!
Since we crossed the dateline, our flight that took off at 1030 on Tuesday actually landed at 0600 on the same day. Here we are on final approach to SFO passing over the San Mateo Bridge, with Mount Diablo in the background.
Coming up next, we put together our list of things we learned about Austraila! Thanks as always for reading!
Thanks for another interesting post – we’ll have to make sure we go to O’Reilly’s!