Cairns
Cairns is the gateway to the amazing Far North Queensland region, a wildlife enthusiast’s paradise and the only place in the world where two World Heritage Listed areas exist side by side (Wet Tropics and Great Barrier Reef). The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area is extremely rich in biodiversity, with 2800 plant species and 663 vertebrate animal species, including 65 percent of Australia’s fern species, 30 percent of Australia’s orchid species and 35 per cent of Australia’s mammals.
The region provides access to the oldest tropical rainforest in the world, with landscapes that provide living examples of some of the earliest flowering plants and a fascinating insight into the diversity, evolution and survival of many rainforest species.
This is the area where the world’s songbirds emerged, currently home to forty percent of Australia’s bird species including bowerbirds, kingfishers, riflebirds, fruit doves and the endangered Southern Cassowary. Boasting the highest diversity of rainforest mammals in Australia, the Bennett's and Lumholtz Tree Kangaroo, Spectacled Flying-fox, Daintree River Ringtail Possum, Northern Long-nosed Bandicoot are popular sightings.
The Daintree and Tablelands boasts spectacular landscapes to observe reptiles, amphibians, monotremes and butterflies, including the Platypus, Saltwater Crocodile, Boyd’s Forest Dragon, White-lipped Tree Frog, Green-eyed Tree Frog, Snapping Turtle, Leaf-tailed Gecko and electric blue Ulysses butterfly.
“Frequently people say ‘what is your favourite place in the world?’ and I start off saying home,’’ he said. “But if I’m not home, I usually say, on many occasions, actually North Queensland. “It’s got mountains, it’s got tropical rainforest, it’s got the Barrier Reef. It’s got wonderful creatures that occur nowhere else. It’s a great place.”
David Attenborough
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