Easter Hiking at O’Reilly’s

My brother and I visited O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat in Lamington National Park over the Easter long weekend in April. We planned to do a big day hike, halfway along the Border Track to Binna Burra and back.

The drive up was fun, we stopped in Canungra for lunch at a great little Japanese kitchen and beer garden. Once we hit the range the road conditions got a bit dodgy. It’s been a wet few months and the road coming into the retreat isn’t bitumen so it was full of potholes. And it was raining so the potholes were muddy and full of water!

We arrived at the campground and unpacked the car in the rain. It wasn’t pelting or anything but every time we’ve gone hiking together it’s been wet so we were a bit put out by how it was going so far.
We set up our shelters and stowed our stuff so it would stay dry. I’m pleased I can put up my tent so quickly, it’s simple now I’ve done it a few times. Then we headed off to explore the retreat!

We started with the campground and checked out the camp kitchen and toilet facilities. Being Easter the place was pretty full, but everyone was doing their part to take care of the shared spaces.
We headed up to the main house, where O’Reilly’s was originally opened decades ago. We found ourselves in their upstairs Rainforest Bar for a warming glass of wine. Very luxurious compared to our couple of Mt. Glorious visits!

It was back to camp for dinner and we headed to bed pretty early. Wet and cold will do that to you. We slept okay, rain does sound lovely in the rainforest, and we were up the next morning keen to head out for the day.
Our fire lighting supplies had gotten wet so no billy boiling for us. We headed up to the kitchen facilities and used the zip tap for hot water - coffee and porridge sorted!

We mucked around for a while getting our food ready, and packing our day packs. This trip was about conditioning for distance rather than carrying weight so we only packed what we needed for the day rather than full multi-day size packs.
By the time we were heading out the sun had made an appearance so it was off with jackets and rain covers while it lasted.

 I have never had so much trouble walking on a well maintained track. Despite the wet weather, we didn’t really think about what that would do to a dirt walking track. Put lots of traffic on top and it became one big muddy, sloppy puddle we were walking through.

To avoid erosion of the track and deterioration into surrounding rainforest, hiking etiquette says you should walk straight through the middle of puddles, I mean that’s what your hiking boots are built for. The problem with this in ongoing wet weather is the mud gets really churned up and the puddles get quite deep. Once you have that much water it can come up over your boots and you’ve got wet socks and feet for the remainder of the day. Unpleasant to say the least.

So we tried to avoid the worst puddles, ones that were obviously shallow we walked through as best we could. I was glad I had my hiking poles because it was slippery and falling into that muck would have been awful.

We had sun for a while before the rain came back over. The Border Track has lovely scenery, and being in a rainforest while it’s wet makes it more interesting than it being dry. We passed a couple of little creeks that normally would have nothing going on, but this weekend they were flowing merrily, making that lovely tinkling sound of nature.

We had been out a few hours when we hit the first lookout turn off. There are three lookouts within a short distance of each other coming up to the halfway mark. They face south and the track is right on the border of Queensland and New South Wales so you’re looking out over that state’s hinterland.
It was still raining however and the turnoff was all white, wet cloud so we knew we wouldn’t have been able to see anything so we kept walking. This was the hardest part of the day, we were close to halfway and tired, we needed to stop for lunch, and we were on the exposed side of the range so the weather was colder and windier.

As we walked we kept our eyes out for a sheltered spot we could have our lunch. There were a few options but we were trying to push for halfway before coming back to one. By the time we hit the second lookout we called it, the weather was too bad and we were starting to worry about making it back to camp if it got worse during the afternoon.

We turned back at about 9kms, a couple short of halfway. We returned to the nicest shelter spot we had found and set up lunch. Knowing we only had to carry day packs, we went all out with an anti pasto feast of crackers, cheese, olives and meats. A little glass of wine would have gone down so nicely!

Lunch took about 15 mins and we had rested long enough to be getting quite cold so it was time to head back. The first few kilometres were fine then I really started fading. Working the track for hours and the weather not letting up was taking its toll. My brother on the other hand was pushing for an ‘hour of power’ to get us back in good time! I appreciated him keeping me going and I did my best, hopefully I didn’t hold him back too much!

When we were within a couple of kms of camp we started passing people heading out clean and dry for a short walk. The rain was just stopping. We must have looked like hell, all wet and muddy. All in all we hiked about 18 kilometres and we were out in the weather for five or six hours. 
It was a beautiful and challenging day and we were so tired when we got back. We rested in the sun for a while before heading back to camp from the trailhead. We got cleaned up and headed back to the bar.

We took our notebooks and some National Park maps I had and did some reflecting and future planning over a couple of drinks and some dinner. We talked about future gear that would make our hiking easier or more pleasant, and considered different locations and tracks for another two night trip.
Once we had eaten and had a final drink, we went back to the campground section of the retreat. We finished off our night with a cup of tea then it was early to bed to head home early the next morning.

I would highly recommend O’Reilly’s no matter what you want to do, whether it’s hike, camp or relax, and whether you want to stay in the campground, the main house, or apartments. It’s a beautiful piece of the world and for those people living in South East Queensland a local location well worth getting to know.