Exploring Australia's rainforests
21.07.2023 - 08:27
/ roughguides.com
/ Red Centre
Australia has it all covered: the big blue Great Barrier Reef, the Red Centre, white and golden beaches, but often visitors miss out on a huge part of the country's landscape: the lush, green rainforests. Spanning across this vast country (yes, even in the seemingly arid Northern Territory – we'll get to that later) you'll find all five types of climactic rainforest. So whether it's an exciting jungle walk you're looking for, a rainforest that brushes onto beautiful beaches or one surrounding thundering waterfalls and cooling plunge pools, an Australia rainforest experience will have your heart fluttering as fast as the butterflies that inhabit them.
The Daintree Rainforest is the reigning king of Australian rainforest. The oldest continuously surviving tropical rainforest on earth and part of the World-Heritage listed Wet Tropics (which also includes Karunda), it's a beast. It's accessible from Cape Tribulation – the only place in the world where two UNESCO sites meet, the Daintree and Great Barrier Reef – as well as Cairns, Port Douglas and Cooktown. This area is one of the only places you can glimpse the southern cassowary bird, and it's also a highly significant place for Aboriginals. To learn more, head to Mossman Gorge, where you can go on bush tucker walks with an Aboriginal guide to learn more about the Aboriginal peoples' connection with nature.
Cape Tribulation, where the Daintree rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef © Darren Tierney/Shutterstock
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If the Daintree is the king, the Gondwanas are the most legendary of Australia's rainforests. The Gondwana rainforests of Australia can be found from Newcastle in New South Wales up to southeast Queensland. Their name recalls the ancient continent of Gondwana that once connected South America, Australasia and Africa.
The most extensive area of subtropical rainforest in the world, the Gondwanas cover a lot of Australia's national parks, such as Springbrook (fun tidbit: this is where I'm A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here is filmed) and Lamington National Parks in Queensland and Wollumbin (which surrounds the remnants of the larger extinct volcano, Mount Warning) and Dorrigo National Parks in New South Wales. In any of these parks you may be able to see the rare Albert's Lyrebird.
To cover more ground in your trip, jump into a hire car and head for the Rainforest Way, a series of scenic drives that stretch from the Gold Coast to Byron Bay.
Dorrigo National Park in New South Wales, part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia © Taras Vyshnya/Shutterstock
In the Northern Territory, the type of Australia