The mountains of Lamington are called Woonoongoora in the Yugambeh language, sacred country, and it is Wangerriburra family land across most of what is now the national park. What grows on it is Gondwana rainforest, the old cool green kind that has been here since Australia was joined to everything else, and it was among the first places in the country given World Heritage listing. Up at Green Mountains you can walk out into the top of it. The treetop walkway there was the first in Australia, nine suspension bridges strung sixteen metres above the forest floor, so you stand level with the birds rather than squinting up at them. It is short, it is railed and it does not ask much of you, which is rather the point. Some of the best of this forest is available to anyone who can manage a gentle walk.
The guest house at the end of that road turns a hundred this year. The O’Reilly family opened it in 1926 and never left, and it is the third and fourth generations running it now. Something like 2.8 million people have stayed since. Grace O’Reilly is nineteen and one of the fourth generation: “Being part of our family business allows me to connect deeply to something my family has devoted their lives to for over 100 years.” Her cousin Ned, twenty two, puts it more simply: “I’ve been coming to the mountain since birth, it’s my home.” In 1937 Bernard O’Reilly read a newspaper, worked out roughly where a missing plane must have come down, and walked into those ranges alone for ten days until he found two survivors of the Stinson crash still alive. For the centenary the family has laid the hundred years out for anyone to see: a timeline of photographs and film at the mountain cafe and an open air collection of old machinery, both free, billy tea and damper on the guest house lawn on weekend mornings, and a guided walk along the historic Stockyard Track every Wednesday. Come for the canopy. Stay because somebody will tell you the story of the mountain while you drink tea on the lawn.
Our short take: with thanks to O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat, whose March 2026 centenary announcement carries the quotes from Grace O’Reilly and Ned O’Reilly, and to Queensland Parks for the Yugambeh naming of Woonoongoora. The retreat is run by Shane O’Reilly, third generation. The park is on Yugambeh Country, Wangerriburra family group. Photograph: Gondwana rainforest, a library image chosen to represent the forest described.