Ancient Rainforest Meets Reef: Daintree Reveals Earth's Most Biodiverse Ecosystem

The Daintree Rainforest, the section of the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area north of the Daintree River that contains the most ancient continuous tropical rainforest in the world at 135 million years old and that meets the Great Barrier Reef in the unique interface of the two World Heritage environments at Cape Tribulation, provides the natural heritage experience that makes the drive north from Cairns through Port Douglas and across the Daintree ferry one of the most biodiverse and historically significant landscape journeys in Australia. The region's status as the world's oldest tropical rainforest, predating the Amazon and surviving the ice ages that replaced much of the world's tropical rainforest, gives it a biological significance that the visitor experiences as the extraordinary diversity of species that share the rainforest environment in concentrations found nowhere else.

The Cape Tribulation road, north of the Daintree ferry crossing, travels through the World Heritage-listed rainforest in the most intimate way that vehicular access allows, the forest canopy meeting overhead on the narrow road through the rainforest and the creek crossings and the elevated boardwalks at the interpretive sites creating the immersive rainforest experience that the visitor has come the length of Australia or from across the world to have. The Alexandra Lookout at the crest of the Daintree Range before the ferry provides the classic view of the Daintree estuary and the rainforest-covered hills that frames the landscape in the comprehensive view that the road journey through the forest's interior cannot achieve.

Port Douglas, the resort town 60 kilometres north of Cairns at the foot of the Daintree Range and the southern gateway to the World Heritage area, provides the premium tourism infrastructure that the Daintree's high-yield visitor market requires. The Sheraton Mirage, the Quicksilver reef connections, and the Four Mile Beach that makes Port Douglas one of Australia's most beautiful resort beaches create the tourism product that the Daintree visitor uses as the accommodation and service base for the exploration of both the reef and the rainforest that the location between them enables.

The Indigenous tourism experiences in the Daintree, led by the Kuku Yalanji people whose country the Daintree rainforest is and whose Mossman Gorge cultural centre provides the guided walks and the cultural interpretation that the traditional owners' perspective adds to the ecological experience of the rainforest, creates the depth of understanding that the visitor to the Daintree benefits from when the human history of the landscape is presented alongside the natural history that the World Heritage values celebrate.