I have been to O'Reillys a couple of times now, but like so many of the beautiful places I am lucky enough to experience there seems to be an endless source of new sight and sounds to be a part of.
On this trip I was shown a very special spot The Wishing Tree -
- quite close to the Guesthouse, walked from there to the edge of Morans Falls, then walked to Python Rock lookout.
Although it is a windy road to get to O'Reillys, it really is a very very special part of the Gold Coast hinterland.There were lots of visitors filling the car park to over flowing..
The walk to the wishing tree included many fungal distractions...despite their attractive show these orange ping pong bats (Favolaschia calocera) are in fact an exotic species which is pushing out some of the native fungi..something of a potential problem which may reduce diversity and have undesirable knock on effects.
I almost take the Golden curtain (Stereum ostrea) for granted these days so often do you encounter its splash of golden colour on the forest floor.
There were also some lovely Ganoderma sp;
and what looked a lot like Polyporus badius;
I know...enough with the fungi show us some pics of the forest the trees and the falls...OK... I think that many of the woodland/forest paths were constructed in the 1930's, and can only imagine just how living and working in this environment must have enriched the lives of the O'Reillys. It is still magical.
In some places the path passes through the centre of hollow buttressed trees
- and at the end of this fairy pathway...the wishing tree (hard to photograph due to its size) here is the base through which the paths passes.
Then onto the dramatic vistas of Morans Falls and the gorge -
By the time the sun was going down the car park was almost entirely empty.
Stopped on the drive out to investigate a stump by the road which was supporting a very large number of fruiting bodies of what may well have been the Ghost fungus (Omphalotus nidiformis).
