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FROM PHILIP LAMBE IN SYDNEY:

Once a year, usually in August, the famous OREILLYS GUESTHOUSE in the Lamington National Park in Southern Queensland offers a special fortnight of activities called "Off The Beaten Track". Usually their activities make use of the many well-built walking tracks surrounding the guest house in the rain forest. But during Off The Beaten Track, walks are organised off the tracks.
A couple of years ago I spent a week up there and did some wonderful walks.

My first was to The Lost World, a plateau surrounded by cliffs straight out of Conan Doyle's novel. We walked the border track for a while then branched off and walked along the rim of the Tweed volcano to the west, eventually turning north again until we descended a ridge to a saddle. Then scrambling and rock hauling up a very narrow and steep ridge to the plateau. A walk through virgin rainforest took us to a little waterfall with views over towards O'Reilly's. We descended by a similarly dramatic narrow ridge beside some cliffs and eventually got to our beer- stocked minibus for an exciting drive back up the Duck Creek road back to the guest house.
The second OTBT walk I did was over to Binna Burra. Not via the border track system but straight across the valleys. Once again through trackless rainforest and across two major ridges with beautiful rivers at the bottom of the valleys. We walked beneath some awesome and magestic Hoop Pines at one stage. They must have been hundreds of years old and towered over the forest canopy as the main emergents.

Finally I did the walk I had wanted to do since childhood. To the wreck of the Stinson aeroplane as told in GREEN MOUNTAINS. I had read all about the way Bernard O'Reilly had set out to look for the downed plane based on a hunch that it had crashed somewhere in the Macpherson Ranges way back when I was a boy. There is little left of the plane nowadays and it is the longest day's walk I have ever done, but it was well worth it.

We set off at 4:30 am under torchlight and made our way back up to the border again. Then west along the rim of the caldera with glimpses of the sun coming up on Mount Warning and the white tower of Byron Bay lighthouse in the distance. Lunch was in a clearing in the forest with a short walk to the cliffs of the caldera. After lunch it was down, down, down into a creek system with the wreck just off the ridge line. How Bernard found it is just amazing. There is a little plaque there with the names of those who perished. To find out more go to the story HERE.