Stinson crash explorer Moya Busch celebrated her 100th birthday recently at O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat. Moya was privileged to have trekked alongside Bernard O’Reilly a year after the Stinson plane crash that happened in Lamington National Park, near the Gold Coast. In February 1937, a Stinson airliner was reported missing on a flight from Brisbane, with news of the crash not reaching the O’Reilly’s until almost a week later. Using his bushcraft and geographical knowledge, Bernard O’Reilly discovered the crash site after a day and a half of pushing through dense rainforest near McPherson’s Range. He found two men, John Proud and Joe Binstead, still alive after 10 days, while the other four men who were on the plane died in the crash.
A guest of the O’Reilly’s lodge back in 1938, Moya trekked through the Gondwana rainforest alongside Bernard O’Reilly and six others. This trek was the first time Bernard had been back to the Stinson plane crash site since he’d discovered it a year earlier.
Moya’s 90 year old younger sister Pat Busch was also present to support her sister at the celebration, alongside many of their extended family members. O’Reilly’s have also recently discovered Moya and Pat’s handwritten signatures in the original Guest Book No 1 from 1938, situated on pages 99 and 100.
O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat is also blowing out candles this year for Lamington National Park, which is also celebrating its 100th year of conservation on July 31, 2015, representing the first large National Park in Queensland to be gazetted purely for its natural and cultural values.
Words by Emily Facoory/Images by Ryan Kim
Published on July 24, 2015 on the Highlife Magazine website
Emily Facoory 