O’Reilly’s is a great place to practice your bird photography skills as you can see several species very close and they are predictable.  If you start early, you can make this a day trip from Brisbane with a 2.5 hour drive.  It’s not really far but the road to the top of the mountain is very twisty.  Exact directions are on their website.  They also have some lovely eco-villas overlooking the rainforest and some good deals can be found mid-week outside of school holidays.  Every year, they have a Bird Week in November.

Bird feeding is touristy but fun.  The area is open daily from 10:00am – 4:00pm (weather dependent) and costs $4.00 per tray (suits 2 people).  Get up close and personal with some of Lamington’s iconic birds, such as King Parrots, Crimson Rosellas, or you might be lucky enough to see our ‘mascot’, the Regent Bowerbird.

I’ve been there a few times, usually to take friends up or to practice photography.  Here’s a few scenes from the bird feeding.  They gather in the trees and come down when someone offers a tray of seed or drops seed on the ground.

They also have a canopy walkway in the rainforest – get here early enough and you can have it all to yourself before the tourists arrive!

They have a nice gift shop and restaurant with seats overlooking the spectacular view.  You can also see birds out here.  There are signs telling you not to feed the birds but the birds have discovered that sometimes they can beat the waiters to the leftovers before the scraps can be cleaned up.