Wet Tropics Rainforest
Where the mountains hug the coast and the Coral Sea brings drenching rains to the lowlands and creates the lush and complex world of the tropical rainforest.
A scenic grandeur on the Atherton Tablelands is created by cloud capped mountains, carpeted by steamy jungles that tower over the lowlands. The jungle represents the largest remaining fragments of tropical rainforest in Australia. North of Cairns, between Port Douglas and Mossman, The Great Dividing Range rises to the peaks and gorges of the Mount Windsor Tableland. The precipitous mountain slopes, covered in thick forest, plunge uninterrupted to meet the shoreline.
The World Heritage Area covers about 900,000 hectares.
The rainforests now only exist as a patchy belt up to 70kilometres wide from Cooktown to almost as far south as Townsville. Modest sized waterfalls and cascades flowing with crystal clear water are found through out the Wet tropics rainforest. They carve a ruggedly spectacular landscape into the mountains and provide breathtaking sights for the visitor. Wallaman Falls at 305 metres (1000 ft) are Australia's highest single drop falls. The north-eastern highlands have Australia's heaviest rainfall, with an annual reading of over 4000 millimetres for the Tully-Babinda strip.
Did you know?
That the Wet tropics Rainforest were World Heritage listed in 1989!
Mount Bartle Frere is Queensland’s highest mountain at 1622 metres.That the wettest parts of the rainforest receive as much as 7600mm [296inches] of annual rainfall.
The wet tropics covers only 1% of the Australian continent yet contains 30% of all marsupials, 23% of the reptiles and 18% of the bird populations
