We flew through Vancouver, Canada before the 15-hour direct flight to Brisbane, Australia. The red-eye flight was long and uncomfortable in coach class, but still more pleasant than our flight to South Africa. Sleep deprived and tired, we snaked our way through the long customs line. Once we picked up our rental car, we hit the road toward our first stay:

Girraween Environmental Lodge and Girraween National Park

After the slight mental adjustment to driving on the left side of the road, we escaped the traffic of Brisbane and were soon driving through agricultural lands and small patches of eucalyptus forest. Long-billed Corellas and Magpielarks fed in the grass of the highway medians. In town, lorikeets flew by with quick wingbeats. Even the junk city birds were exciting. The road took us through the Great Divide National Park, where we stopped briefly in the high-elevation rainforest to stretch our legs and see if there were any birds about. A couple of female Satin Bowerbirds, a Lewin's Honeyeater, and a Pacific Baza flew into the unfamiliar eucalypt forest. Above the canopy a flock of Yellow-tailed Cockatoos flew by, while Crimson Rosellas fed on fruits in the treetops. We arrived at the Girraween Environmental Lodge in the early afternoon in time to be checked in by a friendly Romanian woman. Driving to the grounds our cabin, we passed through open grassy fields with grazing Eastern Gray Kangaroos and Red-necked Wallabies. Crimson and Pale Eastern Rosellas, Noisy Miners, and Australian King-Parrots squawked and squabbled in the eucalypt forest.

After unpacking and refreshing after the long flight, we hiked up one of the many lodge trails. We hiked through the eucalyptus forest taking in the unfamiliar smells of the flora and sounds of bird calls.

Side note: Disappointingly, we learned the hard way that the Merlin app for song recognition doesn't work in Australia. At the time of our trip, Merlin could only recognize bird calls and songs of North America and some of South America. I tried to use another app: Birdly that was supposed to identify birds by their song and calls. But throughout the trip, Birdly was disappointingly inadequate at identification. Even with a bird close by, the app could not identify a call or song. Instead it would guess it was a Galah or starling. Birdly was worse than not having Merlin because it promised to do something it couldn't deliver on and I had to pay a small fee for the monthly subscription (which I canceled). In the multiple times I tried Birdly, it only correctly identified the bird twice.

We hiked up one of the trails to large granite boulders among the forested hillsides. Gerygones, thornbills, honeyeaters and mistletoebirds feed among the leaves, fruits, and blossoms. At sunset, we visited the small ponds by the cabins. A surprising number of frogs called loudly from the lily pads and reeds. They were easy to hear, but much harder to spot when hidden under water plants and in the mud.

After spending the morning walking around the lodge's trails and taking in the new surroundings and bird life, we drove back to Girraween National Park and hiked Dr Robert’s Watering Hole and Underground Creek tracks. The short tracks crossed through golden meadows dotted with purple-flag iris and lined with tall eucalyptus. A Red-browed Treecreeper poked along the flaking bark, while small flocks of thornbills probed the leaves. A Brown Goshawk patrolled overhead and in the creek, frogs barked loudly from hidden confines of a fallen log.

Around noon, under the growing heat of the sun, we packed up and headed to our next destination:

O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat and Lamington National Park

The drive to O'Reilly's from Girraween was surprisingly long. We back tracked through the farmlands over the Main Range NP and almost to Brisbane before turning south. The roads passed through more farmlands and a few small towns before the road began its windy ascent up the mountain. The narrow 2 lane road was a little ill-defined in some parts and pinched down to only one lane with a steep drop off on one side. We crawled up through eucalyptus forest on hairpin turns and blind corners, as cars came whizzing down in the opposite direction. The traffic didn't phase the whiptail wallabies who were calmly grazing next in the grassy ditches next to the road. Road construction was underway to help stabilize the falling hillsides. For us, it was a stressful drive. I'm sure to the locals it was quite a joyride.

We had the next 3 nights at O'Reilly's. We got familiar with the Crimson Rosellas and Australian King-Parrots that would come down whenever someone was picnicking or eating breakfast on their decks. They were well habituated and knew people equals food. As charming and beautiful as they are, they were pushy when it came to grabbing a snack. The other birds that were commonly fed at O'Reilly's were the Satin and Regent Bowerbirds, who were fed sultans (raisins) and apple chunks in the evenings in front of the guesthouse. Wonga Pigeons, parrots, brushturkeys, and Crimson-browed Firefinches all feed on the bird seed that was available at the gift shop. During the free morning bird walks through the rainforest, the guides handed out mealworms, so it was common to see Eastern Yellow Robins, Yellow-throated and White-browned Scrubwrens, and Eastern Whipbirds following humans along the park tracks right outside of O'Reilly's. In the evenings, the dark sky revealed the Milky Way and the infinite number of twinkling stars. The mountain air cooled at nights, which provided a pleasant bug-free time for a nighttime walk through the rainforest. We walked around the lodge and a little ways into the rainforest and spotted dozens of common ringtail possums. Among them were a few short-eared possums. It was quite amazing to see such a density of possums. At night, the red-necked pademelons would come out on the lawn to graze. We were told the numbers of pademelons on the lawn had decreased when the dingos started preying on them. One night we walked down to the glowworm grotto on the resort's property. Upon approaching the creek, the loud shrieks of a Sooty Owl pierced the still air under the rainforest canopy. At the creek, many unseen frogs croaked. A few dozen glowworms glowed blue from the creek wall.

After our tour, Tom decided to spend the night at the lodge to scout for an upcoming trip. Another client wanted to see the Rufous Scrubbird, a bird found in a highly specialized environment. It's not a flashy bird, but birders can have odd fetishes. The desire to see the bird would require hiking 8 kilometers through ancient beech forest to the rim of an old caldera. Tom had seen the bird at this specific location in the past, but didn't know its recent status. So he was going to scout the area the following day. The hike sounded like a perfect match to what we were interested in, so we decided to trek out the following day together. Of course, being birders, we made many stops along the track to listen and watch for Abert's Lyrebirds. There were 5-6 actively singing from the dense brush. We never caught a glimpse of one singing, but we did get a great look of one walking down the steep hillside. Seeing the lyrebird in its natural rainforest habitat was more satisfying than seeing them near the rubbish piles. We also tried to see the Noisy Pitta, but could only hear it singing. Other birds' songs that joined the forest chorus included the Golden Whistler, Brown Cuckoo-doves, and the hilarious baby-like cries of the Green Catbirds.The track to the caldera slowly ascended up to the rim from a dense rainforest of buttress trees covered in strangler figs, wait-a-while, and bird nest ferns to a moss enchanted elven forest of ancient Antarctic beech trees. The Antarctic beeches don't grow from seed very well, instead they rely on runners from their root system. These runners remained while the original trees slowly died and rotted away, leaving the trees on stilt like roots.

After 3 enjoyable nights at O'Reilly's in Lamington NP, we headed back down the mountain in the morning. Along the way, we stopped to watch two Noisy Pittas toss leaf litter on the road. With less traffic in the morning, we were stopped to watch the whiptail wallabies grazing in the grassy ditches. The hairpin turns and narrow road was much less stressful with no traffic.

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