Up early for a bird-spotting walk through the rain-forest! We turned up with our long trousers on, sturdy shoes, and anoraks, we felt a bit overdressed, 'cos everyone else wore shorts and flip-flops! You could see them thinking 'who do they think they are, Ray Mears?' We had the last laugh though, as it was quite muddy, there was a constant drip of water from the trees, and plenty of insects around. The walk was very good though, saw loads of birds! After breakf...

The drive here from Brisbane took a couple of hours, and we travelled through some lovely countryside, the views from the Lamington plateau were fantastic. The last bit of the drive was through pretty impenetrable-looking rain-forest, with precipitous drops at the side of the narrow road, and we were expecting the hotel, O'Reilly's Rain-forest Retreat, to be a quiet and reclusive place, a bit 'new-age ecolodge', a bit 'feng-shui rain-forest'! So it was a bit of a...