Daintree, Atherton Tablelands and Cape Tribulation

After the Great Barrier Reef we hired a car and had a chance to do a little bit of exploring in some of northern Queensland's less famous- but still beautiful- areas. First off were the Atherton Tablelands.

Giant Cathedral Fig in the Atherton Tablelands, Queensland, Australia

From Wikipedia:

The Atherton Tableland is a fertile plateau which is part of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. It is located west to south-south-west inland from Cairns, well into the tropics, but its elevated position provides a climate suitable for dairy farming. it has an area of around 32,000 km² with an average altitude between 600 and 900m AHD.

The principal river flowing across the plateau is the Barron River, which was dammed to form an irrigation reservoir named Lake Tinaroo.

The area was originally explored for its mining potential where deposits of tin and a little gold were found.

There are plenty of beautiful waterfalls to visit in the AT, and we visited several.

The water was freezing!

swimming hole in Atherton

The Atherton Tablelands are also home to some truly enormous cathedral fig trees:

There I am in the bottom, left-hand corner (to give you an idea of how massive this tree was)

Atherton is also home to quite a bit of opal mining...

We also took a cable car from the tablelands to the Daintree Rainforest, the largest contiguous area of rainforest in the whole of Australia, and at 165 million years old, the oldest rainforest in the world. Although it only accounts for 0.2% of Australia's total land surface, within Daintree one can find 30% of frog, marsupial and reptile species in Australia, and 65% of Australia's bat and butterfly species, and 20% of bird species. The cable car trip was pretty awesome, with several stops along the way where you could better acquaint yourself with different zones of the forest, and the flora and fauna.

Daintree Rainforest from above

The coast of northern Queensland from the air

Cheesy photos of us in the cable cars

After the cable car trip, we drove back to the coast and continued north to Cape Tribulation, the last pit stop on a paved road in northern Queensland and named so by Captain Cook in the 18th century. To travel north of Cape Trib, a 4 wheel drive (and rations) are necessary for the journey on unsealed track north.

Just like elsewhere, there are marine stingers present in the waters around Cape Trib. Boo, no swimming at the beach.

Beautiful beach in the Daintree

At Cape Tribulation, Meg and Catt

After finishing up in the Daintree, we drove back to Cairns and flew to Adelaide, South Australia... adventure to continue!