Go To Australia With Insurance
It was the four wheel drive carry all that rocked down the rotted jungle track emerging into the bright coastal sunlight as it burst out of the cool and dark forest. It was the Daintree rain forest that was one of the great natural wonders of the world we left behind only to face another one 10 miles offshore in the Great Barrier Reef. If you want to see two wonders side by side, go to northern Queensland, one of the least developed regions along Australia’s tropical northeast coast.
In this place is where one of the oldest rain forests in the world is. The reef that stretches north and south along 1,250 miles of shore swings closest to land in this part of the northern coast. In the rainforest and reef, visitors have easy access. If you wish to see 1,200 species of tropical reef fish or the 350 types of spectacularly colorful living coral that make up the reef then you should consider watching from an underwater observatory, from a glass sided submersible craft, or by diving.
Cairns was the jumping off point, it is actually the gateway to Australia’s Marlin Coast, as beautiful as a British colonial outpost, and a small tropical city of 85,000. The 100 year old Cairns Kuranda Railway that we rode during our out of town trip twists 21 miles up and through rain forests, gorges, and mountains to the village of Kuranda. Again we returned to Cairns and drove north along the Marlin Coast and inland toward the rain forest for 90 minutes.
13 of the 19 families of ancient plant life still found on Earth are contained in the nearby rain forest. A number of them date back to 130 million years. Most roads through the forest are old rutted dirt tracks, originally built for logging and passable only by four wheel drive vehicles. There are pull offs for closer, more leisurely looks at the rain forest, including one that opens on to an hour’s easy stroll along a well marked trail.
A tour service takes environmentally sensitive trips into the rain forest, starting at Silky Oaks and including a boat ride on the winding Daintree River. When it comes to the old gold rush village of Port Douglas, it is a short drive from Silky Oaks to one of the major gateways to the Great Barrier Reef. It was possible for scuba divers to use charter boats, then the skimmers had sailboats, and groups of people were ferried to permanent platforms atop the reef through a fleet of twin hulled jet catamarans.
There is no need to get wet to take a look at the beauty of the coral reef and its multicolored fish because you can use one of two glass-sided semi submersibles on a 30 minute trip alongside the coral. Several trained marine biologists are available for snorkeling trips. Frequented by the locals is the open air coffee shop in the local hotel where we stayed in and its swimming pool has private grottoes, one of which is behind a waterfall. Located outside downtown Port Douglas is the famous Four Mile Beach with beautiful stretches of palm fringed white sand curving along the ocean.
For Port Douglas, it is a jump off sea away from sea and it allows you to have a different look at the northern Queensland environment. It was in the last century when a tableland high above the coast became a prime cattle raising area and today there are still some of the original homesteads on the old cattle ranches in existence. One such property is Wetherby, site of a 1870s homestead and still a working cattle station. The family proprietors have opened the station to tourists for a day’s look at Australia’s outback, past and present.
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