I am in the beginning stages of planning a 4 week vacation to Australia in November 2003. Preliminary plans are to visit Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmania, Adelaide, Kangaroo Island and Perth. One area that I'm thinking of including is a visit to Lamington National Park outside of Brisbane with accomodations at O'Reilly's Rainforest Guesthouse. I would appreciate any feedback as to whether this area and O'Reilly's is worth including in my itinerary. Thank you so much for your help!

The area that O'Reilly's is in and for many miles around that is probably one of the best areas in Australia and has far more to offer than many other places you are going to. <BR>Although I perhaps would not suggest staying at O'Reillys itself - because once there you are kind of stuck there - I would very much urge you to take the time to visit the border areas of South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales. <BR>Do a search of SOuth East Queensland or Gold Coast and specifically Gold Coast Hinterland to find out just what is on offer. <BR>I live on Tamborine Mountain which is one of the mountains in the line of the one that O'Reilly's is on. There is heaps and heaps of wonderful accommodation here and if you have a car or you can pick up a tour from here to O'Reilly's and also get to see all the other things that are on offer in this area i.e. 9 National parks, waterfalls, rainforest walks, gloworms, boutique little shops, hang gliding, gem fossicking, winery tours, horse riding in rainforest etc etc. You will see some of Australia's most beautiful birds in this area and of course some local wild-life.<BR>If you would like to let me know how long you wish to stay in this area I could recommend some web sites for you to check out.

I think that this could be a good site to start off with<BR>http://www.bigvolcano.com.au/places/goldcoas.htm<BR>There are many links you can take from that site. Tamborine Mt is on the northern end of the largest caldera in the southern hemisphere and the second largest in the world making the geographic area a very interesting one. As you are not going to Cairns and the tropical north this area at least gives you a cooler look at rainforest environments and flora and fauna.

Sandi,<BR>we did a great walk on a suspended walkway, high up in the treetops, not far from O'Reillys. I think we would have seen birds and other wildlife, had it not been for the 6 idiot teenagers who ran along ahead of us, shouting! Unbelievable.<BR>Yes, it's worth the trip but I agree, wouldn't stay overnight.<BR>Kay

Lamington is special..<BR>world heritage rainforest..take the walk to the caldera riim...look out over the tweed valley and mt warning.<BR>Bernard O'Reilly and the stinson crash is a great australian story.<BR><BR>Squeeze 10 days off Hobart,Melbourne and perth and hire a car in Coolangatta or Brisbane and do a loop..<BR>Byron and "big scrub" hinterland<BR>climb mt warning<BR>Lamington<BR>maybe Gold coast<BR>sunshine coast<BR>Fraser<BR>maybe lady elliot.<BR>

Thank you so much for all the posts! The information is much appreciated.

What's &quot;gem fossicking&quot; and where can we do this?

digging for semi-precious gems....this can be done in various areas of northern New South Wales and in Queensland. The one that I was speaking of here was at Thunderbird Park on the side of Tamborine Mountain and here you can get some lovely agate in the form of Thunder eggs and have the polished on site.
The other areas you can go gem fossicing are: Emerald, Rubyvale and Sapphire which is west of Rockhampton and the stones there are beautiful sapphires. Northern NSW around Inverell, again for sapphires, rubies and other variations of corundum (sp??) S.W. Queensland for Opals, North Queensland around Mt Garnet, for garnets and between Lowmead and the town of 1770 for Amythysts. Around and in Gympie, Qld for Gold. N.W NSW at Lightning Ridge for Black opals and others. So there is a start for you. There are lots of other places throughout Australia for all sorts of things.