Green Mountains is 115km from Brisbane via Canungra or 70km from the Gold Coast via Nerang and Canungra. The bitumen road is winding and often narrow, and should be driven with great care.The Green Mountains, Lamington National Park protects the largest area of undisturbed subtropical rainforest remaining in south-east Queensland.
The 20,500 ha park covers a series of densely-forested valleys and ranges rising to more than 1100m where the McPherson Range marks the Queensland-New South Wales border. Lamington lies on the Scenic Rim, a chain of mountains curving around Brisbane within a radius of approximately 100km.
The first European to visit what is now Lamington National Park was Surveyor F. E. Roberts in 1864. He surveyed the interstate border and named many of the high points along this route. From the late 19th century, Robert Collins, a successful grazier and parliamentarian from the Beaudesert district, advocated reservation of a large section of the McPherson Ranges as national park. In 1911 he was joined in his struggle by an enthusiastic young man named Romeo Lahey. Lamington was finally declared in 1915, just two years after Collins' death.
The O'Reilly family took up selections in 1911, establishing a farming enterprise. Since the 1902s the family has operated a successful guesthouse at Green Mountains. O'Reilly's (as it's called) has a great restaurant with a view similar to the one I have captured here. The things I was most impressed with here were the absolutley beautiful parrot type birds that fly around here, there were literally hundreds of them all around O'Reilly's.
The other things that I loved here, were the walking bridges that went from tree to tree, that were anywhere from 50-75 feet above the ground. An extensive walking track system providing easy access to forests, creeks and waterfalls radiates from Green Mountain.
We drove up out of Brisbane to view this area. We spent the day up here (and had lunch) at O'Reilly's, Mt. Tamborine and Lamington then went down and visited a Canugra Valley Winery to finish off our day in the Green Mountains.
