DAINTREE RAINFOREST,
Australia
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It’s a little known fact that the Daintree
Rainforest, an ancient World-Heritage listed
wonderland in our own backyard, is older
than the Amazon. It’s here the velvety green
mantle of the forest slopes plunge to the
aqua Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, where
fringing reefs grow almost to the shore. No
where else in the world can you experience
these two natural wonders side by side -
where World Heritage-listed
Great Barrier
Reef and Daintree rainforest actually meet.
The quaint Daintree Village, just a 45
minute drive from Port Douglas, is the
perfect base from which to explore the
rainforest region.
From the village, the wonder of the Daintree
and Cape Tribulation rainforest is on your
doorstep. There are flora species that have
survived almost unchanged for 110 million
years. The Daintree rainforest actually
contain several of the first flowering
plants (called angiosperms), which were the
origins of all plant life.
About 3,000 plant species from 210 families
are found in the Daintree Cape Tribulation
Rainforest. Twelve out of the world's 19
families of primitive flowering plants grow
here and within these families, there are at
least 50 species found only in the Daintree
Cape Tribulation Rainforest. While many of
the plants in the rainforest have been
around for millions of years
This area is home to about a third of
Australia's 315 mammal species - 13 of these
species are found nowhere else in the world.
They include unique green possums, ringtail
possums, fierce marsupial cats, rare bats,
tree-kangaroos, a rat-kangaroo, a melomys
and an antechinus. There are many
spectacular insects to see in the
rainforest, including, crustaceans, worms,
beetles, ants, spiders, mites, scorpions,
amblypygids, centipedes and millipedes, not
to mention the snails and slugs.
While the rainforest region is home to a
quarter of Australia's frogs and a little
over a third of the country's freshwater
fish, it is also home to nearly half of
Australia's birds - that's more than 370
different species.
There are so many different things to see in
our rainforests that many interesting but
demure species go unnoticed. See some of the
colourful forms of mushrooms and fungi that
inhabit the rainforest floor.
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Experience the Daintree through self-drive,
4WD safaris, interpretive tours, night
safaris or bush walking the variety of
boardwalks through the rainforest.
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