Little Jo’s O’Reilly’s Ride

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Date(s) - 27/02/2021
12:00 am

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As February can be hot, I’ve chosen a mountain ride to keep us as cool as possible. I recently realised I hadn’t been to O’Reillys for about ten years and whenever I mentioned it, everyone always mentioned the bad roads.Glenn and I rode out there recently and thoroughly enjoyed the ride up to the Lamington Plateau, we took it slow on the winding mountain roads and enjoyed the vistas towards mountains in the West and the World Heritage rainforest.
In 2017 Cyclone Debbie closed the road and with the reopening, came a great amount of road widening and improvements, there are still a couple of one-way areas with either a Give Way sign or traffic lights and the last few kilometres are a bit rough, but not many potholes and at a slow speed are no great issue. The ride is adventurous and has 3 cattle grids and a number of 10km/hr hairpin bends. We’ll definitely need to be in low gear and give each other plenty of space in those twisties.

We’ll leave Gloria’s at 9am and meander around the coast via Mt Tamborine and Canungra with first drinks at the historic homestead at O’Reilly’s Winery, just 14km out of Canungra. (Don’t panic, they serve, beer, wine, coffee and soft drinks as well as wine.)

From there we will head 28km along the Lamington National Park Rd to O’Reilly’s, with a quick stop at a scenic lookout along the way. Arriving at O’Reillys Café at approx. 12 noon. The café has a limited menu at the moment but has hamburgers, toasted sandwiches and an assortment of light lunch options. Feel free to bring a picnic lunch as there are plenty of grassy, shady areas for picnicking.

I plan to head for home about 2pm which allows time after lunch to explore the rainforest boardwalk, free tree top canopy walk, King Parrot feeding, shop and memorials to the history and heritage of the O’Reilly family including the Stinson plane crash discovery in 1937.

Last drinks at Canungra Hotel if we still feel thirsty.

Little Jo

UPDATE:

Hi Cruisers,

Just want to share a few more details about this Saturdays ride to O’Reilly’s. Thankfully Saturday is forecast to be a fine, cloudy day and Friday will be sunny, which gives the roads a chance to dry before our ride.

At our first drinks stop, I have arranged with the winery that we park on the grass at the front of the homestead so we can take a group photo, so your patience will be appreciated and keep it in mind when parking. Now whilst I’m no teetotaler, I highly recommend you indulge in a soft drink or coffee at our first stop as you, and everyone around you, will want you to have your wits about you for the scenic road climb to the “top”!

18km after leaving the winery we will stop at the “postcard perfect” Kamarun Lookout as it offers spectacular 200 degree views, so it’ll be a short stop there as it is definitely worth a look. From there and depending on how many bikes we have, for safety reasons I’m planning to split into two groups to head up to O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat. The first group will consist of experienced riders who will enjoy the challenge of the “Alpine” twisting road, I will lead the second group at a slower pace, allowing plenty of time to enjoy the view and negotiate the tight corners and cattle grids at a relaxing pace.

An important aspect of safe riding on the Lamington National Park Rd will be allowing plenty of room between you and the rider in front, if the person in front misses a gear on a tight corner we don’t want any incidents, so please keep a good few bike lengths away.

I’ll remind you of the important bits on the day and look forward to seeing you all on Saturday.

I’ll be at Glorias by 8am to make sure I have time for some of Gloria’s wonderful cooking and coffee. Stands up at 9am with a full tank as there’s no fuel at O’Reilly’s

Look forward to seeing you all, remember fingers and toes crossed for fine weather and dry roads on saturday!

Ride Leader: Little Jo

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