Esmo & Rach

O'Reilly's

A few days before Christmas in 2008 (4 days in fact), we went on our 3rd hike for the year.

This time, to O'Reilly's.

O'Reilly's is located in the heart of Lamington National Park, 2 hours by road south of Brisbane. It is 930 metres (3,000 feet) above sea level.

It is a mountain occupied by the O'Reillhy family since the early 1900s. Till this day, the family still stays on the mountain and produce their own line of wine. In addition to wines, the family also owns the O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat and have operated business since first opening in 1926.

On our way towards to top of the mountain, we stopped by the vineyard and tasted some wines. Though you have to pay for tasting the wines, it will be fully refundable when you buy any from them. They have quite an extensive range of wines. Red, white, sparkling and even dessert wines. In the end, all of us when back with at least 1 bottle. (We bought a dessert wine with lychee flavour. Tastes sweet and refreshing... Too bad I forgot the name already...)

We saw rows upon rows of grape vines when we drove into the vineyard and we decided to explore and see if they have grapes on them. And yes, they do. In fact, Esmond had stealthily plucked one and pop it into his mouth... The verdict? It was one of the foulest things he had ever ingested... it was so "siap" that he spat it out the moment he bit onto it....

Once we are satisfied with our purchases, we proceeded up the mountain in search of a good picnic / bbq spot. We were lucky because we found one with a gazebo as it had started drizzling.

As usual, each party had to bring their own contribution and share. So out came all the plastic containers, thermal pots and cookwares filled with goodies. Once we've had our fill and the drizzle let up, we promptly bundled up our wares back into our car boots and headed off in search for the hanging bridge...

Before we came to the bridge, some very colourful creatures had stopped us in our paths.

Lorikeets! and they weren't scared of humans! They have grounds for you to hand feed the birds...

When we are done with the winged creatures, we headed off for the adventure. The climb on the hanging bridge is gentle. However, it belies the height it was hung above the ground.

It wasn't as steep or as harrowing as the hanging bridge which I climbed when I went on a school trip to Shah Alam's Four Season's Park in 1991. That bridge only allows for us to climb in a single file. And it was more like steps as we had to literally climb the hanging bridge as if it were a flight of stairs (coupled with the fact that 20 or so secondary school kids jumping and prancing and shaking the bridge as we cross....).

The hanging bridge is a lot sturdier and gives us a much stronger sense of reliability. The highlight is the Tree Top climb. There's a ladder which leads up to the top of the canopy and at its peak is about 30 - 40 metres above ground. Not everyone had the nerve to clamber up the steep ladder.

With Esmond and me being the usual "sam seng", we went up there like monkeys (i.e. no hesitation - not howling like one!....)

It was a pretty tight climb and there were two levels. The first can accommodate up to a maximum of 3 and the second (higher) level only 2. So at any point in time, the tree can only accommodate a maximum of 5 persons. Given the size of our group, not to mention the other visitors, there was soon a queue of 'monkeys' who want to get their butts up the tree.

When all the "sam sengs" are done with the tree, we proceeded with the track and came across a garden. It wasn't anything spectacular but we saw some R-rated activities going on there...