Located near Lamington National Park this lookout has spectacular views of the mountains. This lookout is located on Duck Creek Rd which, if you follow it to the top, will bring you to O'Reilly's guesthouse. The road is recommended 4WD but high clearance sedans can negotiate it when dry. The road is closed to all traffic when wet however.
(Acknowledgement to the Four Bears, original cache owners, for this information on the area) The O'Reilly's first came to the mountain in 1903 and established the guesthouse in July 1915. In February 1937 a Stinson airliner enroute from Brisbane to Sydney crashed near here in the impenetrable rainforest. A week after the official search was called off Bernard O'Reilly, one of the original pioneers in this area, went out for a 'little bush walk' to search for the site of the crash. The subsequent discovery of the wreck and rescue of two survivors is a truly incredible tale, told by Bernard O'Reilly himself in his book Green Mountains. If you want to learn more about the history of the area and this incredible man and his family I highly recommend you get a copy of this book from the library or from the shop at the top of the mountain, or the Canungra Information Centre
The lookout is part of Duck Creek Mountain Road, which was built in 1978 as a joint effort by the local Chamber of Commerce and O'Rielly's Guesthouse. The local people who use Duck Creek Road were becoming concerned at the condition of the track and rather than have it closed, decided in 1980 to raise money to upgrade it. They had an auction, and the auctioneer was Peter O'Reilly. It was a novel way to maintain a road; the auction travelled along its length, stopping periodically to auction off a spot. You could bid on each location, or tree or rock, and the highest bidder had their name put on a sign there. The highest bid went to a bloke who happened to be passing the auction and asked what was going on. At that point they were auctioning a lookout and he parted with $2,500.00 to have his name placed on the best lookout along the whole track. And that's how John Shephard Lookout got its name.