Wet Tropics of Queensland

Stop for a moment and listen. Water drips from leaf to leaf above you, falling through several layers of green before it reaches the ground. The air is warm and heavy, and it smells of wet soil, rotting wood and something faintly sweet. Somewhere high in the canopy a bird gives a sharp, ringing call. Underfoot, the path is soft with fallen leaves. This is the Wet Tropics of Queensland, and you are standing inside one of the oldest living forests on Earth.

Let us start with the scale, because it is easy to underestimate. The Wet Tropics is not a single park. It is a long, broken ribbon of rainforest that runs for hundreds of kilometres along the northeast coast of Australia, roughly between Townsville in the south and Cooktown in the north. It climbs from sea level up steep mountain ranges and onto cool tablelands. Dozens of national parks and reserves sit inside it. Altogether it covers close to nine thousand square kilometres.

In 1988, UNESCO added this region to the World Heritage List. It was recognised on all four natural criteria — a rare distinction. In simple terms, that means the area matters for its beauty, for its record of Earth's history, for the evolution still happening here, and for the plants and animals that live here. Many visitors do not realise how unusual that is. Only a small number of World Heritage sites meet every one of those natural tests.

Here is the first surprise. Scientists often describe these forests as older than the Amazon. Their roots go back many tens of millions of years, to the time when Australia was still joined to Antarctica and South America in a supercontinent called Gondwana. As Australia drifted north and dried out, most of its rainforest disappeared. But here, in these wet mountains, pockets survived. So the forest around you is, in a real sense, a living museum of what much of the continent once looked like.

The plants carry the evidence. This region holds some of the most ancient lineages of flowering plants found anywhere in the world. One famous example is a tree with a strange name — the idiot fruit. It belongs to a very old plant family, and for a long time botanists did not know it still existed. It came back to scientific attention in the twentieth century, when cattle died after eating its large, toxic seeds. Its rediscovery helped convince the world that these forests deserved protection.

Now look around at the trees themselves. Notice the wide, flat roots that spread out from some trunks like the fins of a rocket. These are buttress roots. The rainforest soil is often thin, and these roots help tall trees stay upright. Then look for vines wrapped tightly around other trunks. Many of these belong to strangler figs. A fig seed lands high in a host tree, sends roots down to the ground, and slowly encloses its host. Over many years, the host can die and rot away, leaving a hollow lattice of fig roots standing alone.

The animal life here is just as unusual, though much of it hides by day. The southern cassowary is the creature most people hope to see. It is a large, flightless bird with glossy black feathers, a bright blue neck and a hard, helmet-like crest on its head. Cassowaries swallow fruit whole and spread the seeds across the forest, so many trees depend on them. They are endangered. They can also be dangerous if approached — so if you meet one, keep your distance and let it walk away.

Other residents are harder to spot. Lumholtz's tree-kangaroo lives in the upland forests — yes, a kangaroo that climbs trees. The musky rat-kangaroo, a tiny creature active during the day, is considered the most primitive living member of the kangaroo family. Look closely at tree trunks for Boyd's forest dragon, a lizard that often clings very still at head height. And watch for a flash of electric blue moving between the trees. That is likely the Ulysses butterfly, one of the most recognised insects of this coast.

The second surprise concerns people, not plants. This forest is not wilderness in the sense of an empty land. Rainforest Aboriginal peoples have lived here for many thousands of years. Around twenty different groups have traditional connections to the Wet Tropics, including the Kuku Yalanji people in the Mossman and Daintree area. Their knowledge of food plants, seasons and sacred places runs deep. The World Heritage listing was later updated to recognise these cultural values too. Many local guided walks are now led by Traditional Owners — and they are worth seeking out.

The Wet Tropics also offers some very different landscapes in one region. Mossman Gorge has clear water running over smooth granite boulders. Barron Falls, near the village of Kuranda, drops off the edge of the tablelands into a deep gorge, and it is most powerful in the wet season. Up on the Atherton Tablelands, the air is cooler and crater lakes sit inside old volcanic landforms. To the south, Mount Bartle Frere rises as the highest peak in Queensland, often hidden under cloud.

Then there is Cape Tribulation, north of the Daintree River. Here something rare happens. The rainforest runs right down to the beach, and just offshore lies the Great Barrier Reef. Two separate World Heritage sites meet along this shoreline. You can stand on the sand with mangroves and forest behind you and reef waters in front. Very few places on the planet put two such different living systems side by side.

A few words of care. Saltwater crocodiles live in many of the rivers, creeks and estuaries here, so obey every warning sign and stay well back from the water's edge. In the warmer months, dangerous jellyfish can appear along the coast. Inside the forest, avoid touching a plant with large, heart-shaped, fuzzy leaves. It is the stinging tree, and its sting can cause pain for a long time. Stay on marked paths, and take only photographs.

Before you move on, take one more slow look around you. Find the darkest corner of the undergrowth, then follow a single trunk upward until it disappears into the canopy. Listen again for the dripping water, the insects and the distant bird calls. The forest has been making these same sounds, in some form, for millions of years. As you walk away, notice how the light changes when you step out of the shade — and how quickly the green closes behind you.