O'Reilly's EcoLodge

O'Reilly's Guesthouse

We checked into our hotel, unpacked, and took our first shower in 2 days. We walked around town, found a lunch spot to relieve our mounting hunger headaches, and looked for rental car outlets. A small firm by the beach had scooters and lots of manual transmission cars, not a task my brain wants to be distracted with when driving on the left. A budget office on the way back to the hotel had automatics and also opened at 7:00a the next day.

Back at the hotel we signed up for massages. Great way to start a honeymoon!

Thursday morning we got up early and found an all-you can eat breakfast spot along the beach. We picked up our car from Budget, just 2 blocks away from the hotel. I insisted on driving around the side streets to get the hang of how the other side of the road worked.

Not only do you drive on the left, but the steering wheel is on the right-hand side of the car. The transmission shifter is still in the center, but now it's on your left. The worst part is that the turn signal and windshield washer arms are also switched. For the first 3 days every time I wanted to make a left turn I ended up cleaning my windshield. Later upon returning to the states it was easy to switch back to driving on the right, but I was still wiping my windshield on every turn the first day back!

My driving practice complete enough, we set out for the hills to the west of Surfers Paradise. The traffic at 8:00a Thursday was light compared to what I was used to. I asked Kelly to constantly remind me to drive on the left. Once you got out of town the roads began winding through ranchland and forest. The last 45-minute stretch of our 3-hour leisurely drive was a curvy uphill drive in the drizzle. We made it to O'Reilly's at about 11:00a.

Besides the flights and the hotel in Surfers Paradise, our room at O'Reilly's Guesthouse was the only thing we booked in advance. After waiting a short while in the common area next to the crackling fireplace, we checked into the room, paid an additional charge for their meal service, and explored a little bit until lunchtime. We made our way to the gift shop and quickly purchased sweatshirts for the cold, drizzly day that we hadn't anticipated.

Just outside the gift shop we found a small shaded clearing with about 50 parrots all mulling around a dozen or so hapless humans. They were feeding the birds with seed purchased from the gift shop. A small bag of seed goes a long way, so it must not have been too much of a sacrifice when a fellow tourist gave me the rest of his small seed pack.

The crimson rosella had blue wings with a red chest. I couldn't distinguish between the male and female, but I'm sure the birds could! Both parrots were about the same size - 1.5 ft from beak to tail.

The birds were not really adversarial - a bird which was already feeding from your hand would simply fly away if another bird suddenly arrived to challenge the spot. Tourists' reactions spanned the gamut from wide-eyed enthrallment (like me) to fear. Occasionally something would frighten the parrots and all of them would take flight into the trees with a great squawking.

We made our way past the lodge to a trailhead that advertised a rainforest view. The short path ended at a small but varied garden and a bridged path through the rainforest canopy. Signs on the bridge warned not to populate any span with more than 6 people at a time. One of the supporting structures was a tree trunk that offered a precarious ladder even higher towards the sky. I got a good picture of Kelly on one of the spans.

Females were totally different - beige and speckled with brown wings. Another species, the satin bowerbirds also differed greatly between males and females. The female satins looked a lot like the female regents.

The male satins were pitch black, but with a distinctive violet sheen about their feathers and a beautiful purple eye. The females shared their mates' purple eye.

What a great way to start the vacation. We went in and had a delicious lunch before heading out on our guided hike. 4x4 busses drove us to the trailhead and Mike, a local researcher, guide, and aspiring photographer brought 12 of us down an easy path to show us the plants and scenery.

There were many examples of strangler figs here and in subsequent hikes on the trip. Their story is often repeated: A bird eats a fig fruit, flies up in a tree, and poops. The undigested seed germinates in a high branch by sending roots down to the ground from above. When the roots take hold it sends more and more roots all around the tree. The roots eventually surround the host trunk and strangle it. The host dies leaving a large strangler fig tree in its place. The entire process takes hundreds of years.

Mike showed us the lair of the trap-door spider. We didn't see the spider, but we saw its front door. A tiny, sheer slab of mud hinged to the earth by webbing perfectly sealed the tunnel beyond from harm and sight. Unless you knew what you were looking for, you'd never see one of these things closed.

The hike wound on to an overlook clearing where a tall waterfall emptied into the valley below. A small flock of pigeons circled in the valley to gain enough altitude to attempt the trip up the river at the top of the falls. Sometimes they made it, sometimes they had to try again. It was a short walk over the river to the other side of the falls where the bus was waiting to take us back to the lodge.

We went back to our room to relax before dinner. Our room had a little balcony that opened up to an expansive view of a green valley. Rosellas were flying back and forth, occasionally landing on the tin corrugated roof and making a small clatter with there feet. We put some seed out and sure enough, a pair showed up in no time. After the birds ate, we were getting hungry ourselves.

We had a wonderful dinner. During the buffet-style meal you sat with other guests at large tables. We noticed that a concave bay window in the dining hall looked out to a caged feeding area. We weren't sure what the cage was for since there were plenty of birds and even a possum(!!) that easily found their way in and out. In the evening the feeding area was lit so that everyone could enjoy the activity.

Kelly was too tired to go on the evening flashlight hike (or torch hike as they call it there). So it was just me and a few others who boarded the 4x4 bus again at 9:00p to go look for the glowworms. The bus made its way down a sloped road in pitch black. We got out and walked a path that followed a small creek. On the way we spotted a few more possums and a pademelon (pronounced paddy-melon).

A pademelon is a small nocturnal kangaroo. Very roughly, a kangaroo stands about 5ish ft tall, a wallaby is about half the size, and a pademelon is about half the size again. The pademelon didn't really care that we were shining our flashlights on it. Our guide told us that we could find pademelons near the lodge at night. Cool!

We walked on to where the path intercepted the creek. We faced the 6-ft high embankment on the opposite side and shut our lights off. In the night's blackness the embankment became illuminated with many tiny spots of light, perhaps with a faint greenish tinge. I thought the sight resembled a planetarium. The glowworms did not move, nor did they appear to form any constellations.

We made our way back to the bus and back to the lodge. I interrupted Kelly's reading to tell her that I was going to search for pademelons on the lodge lawn. They were right where they said they'd be - about 6 of them munching away at the grass. I tried a couple of flash pictures, but they didn't turn out that great. Kelly's curiosity wouldn't let her stay in the room and she tried a few pictures, too.

The next morning we awoke early to go on the 6:15a birdwatching hike. It was incredibly foggy, and we didn't see too many more birds than we'd seen already. Of course it was always nice to see more regent bowerbirds. After the hike we had a superb breakfast where we saw a catbird in the feeding cage near the dining hall bay window. Catbirds are more easily heard than seen. They get their name because their call sounds like a cat in a fight. They tend to stay high in the trees out of sight, but it is very easy to hear them. It was quite a treat to see one - wish I got a picture! It looked a lot like a female bowerbird except it had a green back.

After breakfast we prepared for another hike. The fog was finally clearing and the sun was coming out. We had good view of the rainforest and valleys from the top of the hike. A few grasstrees (similar to yuccas) graced the lookout.

In a clearing the staff prepared the morning tea. We were quickly learning how engrained morning and afternoon tea was in the Australian culture. For the rest of the trip we never found a place or tour that didn't offer a "cupper" (as in cup-o-tea) and damper, a small cake. Most places served juice if you didn't like tea, and O'Reilly's was no exception. While snacking in the clearing I showed Mike, our guide again, my camera and lens. He was quite interested in the new image stabilizing technology that Canon is making. A pair of crimson rosellas flew in and began munching on some wildflowers. It was nice to see them away from the busy feed zone for a change.

On the way back to the car we found a pied butcherbird munching on a nut or a piece of fruit that was leftover from a prior feeding.

We headed back down the hill towards our hotel in Surfers Paradise. On the way down the hill we encountered an Alpaca ranch. The alpacas, which looked like relatives of the llamas, are bred for their wool. The ranch gift shop sold clothes and hats made of alpaca wool, but they were a little pricy for us.

As we continued down the hills we approached a tight 180 curve. Another car was stopped along the inside of the curve and I could see that they were watching a kangaroo! I stopped our car above and while we were getting our cameras ready I heard a rustling outside my drivers window. It was another kangaroo, right next to us.

The other car left and we continued around the curve to spot a female eastern grey kangaroo with a joey in her pouch. How exciting. That must have been the male that was next to our car. It was a very special ending to our special day at O'Reilly's. We made a few more uneventful stops along the drive back to Surfers Paradise.