After a tense drive up the steep mountain with switch back after switch back we arrived at O'Reillys Rainforest Retreat. We checked in and headed to our mountain villa. As you can see in the picture it was a house on stilts nestled in the woods. What a peaceful place. Our condo was amazing with balcony that overlooked the lush surroundings.
The first night we ate dinner at the restaurant which was good and then retired early for a much needed full night of sleep. In the morning we woke up late and headed out to explore the trails. We borrowed a back pack and loaded Emily up for the ride. We started on their famous tree top walk which is a series of suspension bridges more than 20 meters up in the rain forest. Surprisingly it is very safe for the kids so Samantha could walk on her own with out me having a heart attack. About half way around the trail they have a tree where you can climb up a series of "ladders" and they have two look out decks. I normally shy away from the heights but even I couldn't resist the experience. Wendell and Sharon stayed down with the girls and Kyle and made the climb. The picture of me with scenery behind is from the top deck. We climbed back down and then headed off on to another botanical trail that had some amazing orchids and other natural foliage. You can see the Fig tree behind Wendell and Sharon that has some crazy roots and trunk.
That afternoon Kyle and I went on a zip line expedition. I was expecting some really high platform that ran across a deep valley in the mountains with an unbelievable view. Well sort of what we had. It was perch up a small mountain (of which you had to climb) and then cascaded down over a clear field to the landing. Kyle took a funny video of him going down. I will post separately. That night we wanted to take Samantha on a glow worm tour but it was pouring rain so we decided it was not a good idea. Instead we took her to the bar, where we had drinks and she had hot chocolate.
The next morning the whole family boarded a four wheel drive van and headed out on an expedition to a scenic look out point. We were the only ones on the tour so it was like having our own personal tour guide. We started off down the mountain and into the forest. Kyle got some neat pictures of special fungus that almost glows orange. But while doing so he wandered off the path and also got a few leeches. I told him it just made his experience all the more authentic. See the photo of his foot from hours later. We ended up at a beautiful look out area where our guide made a camp fire to brew tea and warm up "damper" which is like a big Australian biscuit. All very good. On the drive back to the retreat we actually saw a Wallaby (little kangaroo) jumping in the wild. Samantha saw it first and it was near our van and then jumped across the road right in front of us. What a cool thing to see.
After our tour we had some lunch and the were off to the Gold Coast. There were so many more trails we wished we could have explored. If anyone has the chance this was a great place to visit. You can see more about the resort at oreillys.com.au.
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