Higher calling: discover the Lost World among the Green behind the Gold

Perched high atop a plateau in the Green Mountains of southeast Queensland, O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat has been accommodating hikers and birdwatchers since the O'Reilly family opened its first guesthouse in the Gold Coast Hinterland in 1926.

Rooms at the original guesthouse have no televisions, no phones and no internet. Shane O'Reilly, third generation of the family that built the place and now general manager, says some guests even complain about being 'out of touch with the world'. Standing on the deck of the Rainforest Room bar with its cosy wood fire, watching mist and cloud gather in the valley then creep up to the range, locking us in, it's hard to imagine why.

Early next morning, we are taken on a short guided walk to watch the early birds, then indulge in a hiker's breakfast of fruit, yogurt and muesli, French toast and bacon. With a dozen rainforest trails to explore (distances range from 500 metres to 30 kilometres), we settle on a 10-kilometre hike down to Canungra Creek and back. Rummaging in the leaf litter along the way are a variety of scrub wrens, brush turkeys, robins, and irrepressible log-runners doing just what their name suggests, while up in the rainforest canopy, glimpses can be caught of bright green and red king parrots and the magnificent gold-and-black regent bowerbird.

In its early days, O'Reilly's was a defiantly no-frills guesthouse, but as it found fame around the world for its location - just a two-hour drive from the Gold Coast in the heart of Australia's largest subtropical rainforest - along with its birdlife and unique family history, demand grew for a more luxe holiday experience. This has now taken form as O'Reilly's Mountain Villas (which do have phones and TVs) and Lost World Spa. Each villa has a private deck with hot tub and uninterrupted views across Lost World Valley - so named because it looks like a land that time forgot, where dinosaurs still might roam.