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
NEXT>>
Harmful plants of the
Australian tropical rainforest.
Insects that bite in the
rainforest
Bird
Species. Birds of tropical Australia
