Tropical Rainforests of Northern Queensland

My final activity day in Australia began with a rainforest lecture by Brian Clarke, our local Field Guide. Brian has lived in the rainforest for many years. He started one of the region's first interpretative tropical rainforest companies. We've had some bright, knowledgeable lecturers during the past two weeks, but Brian was by far the best. Not only did he know his stuff, he excelled at making the rainforest come alive with his human metaphors about animal behavior in the rainforest.

The rainforest around Kuranda in Queensland are the wettest part of Australia and quite different from the arid conditions we experienced in the Outback. This is the oldest tropical rainforest on earth, estimated to be over 100 million years old. Because of Australia's isolation from other land masses, this rainforest has some plant species that exist nowhere else in the world. More than 800 species of trees can be found here compared to five in the US rainforest. It has far more tropical species per square mile than similar regions elsewhere. It covers 0.1% of the continent and has an extremely rich plant and animal life diversity.

After the lecture we rode the bus into the rainforest. Our exploration began with a short walk along a river on the edge of this World Heritage Site. 

Then we took a ride on one of the world's longest gondolas gliding high above the rainforest canopy. 

We stopped along the way where Brian told us more about the plant life of the forest. 

In this multi-story tree, you see an example of how various plants coexist halfway between the canopy and the floor of the rainforest.

Our next stop was the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park. The rainforest around Kuranda has been the home of the Djabugay aboriginal people for more than 10,000 years. At the center we saw a cultural performance that included tribal dancing, body art worn by tribal member depicting different types of animals and starting a fire with a stick and dry plant life. The musical performance included tribal singing accompanied by the didgeridoo. 

Then we had a sing-a-long in the local language followed by dancing with audience participation. 

After dancing we heard a discussion by a local tribal man about the different types of boomerangs. There are more than five different types used to hunt flying and ground animals. That was followed by a discussion about the nuts, seeds, leaves, and other forest items and how they are used for food and medicinal purposes. We all got a chance to try our hand at throwing a boomerang and spears, two tools traditionally used by the native people to hunt and killed their food. Based our results we would soon starve in the rainforest. It was fun never less.

Our last activity at the cultural center was to view a film about the creation story that  still guides Aboriginal people after thousands of years.

In the evening we had an official celebration of our time together with everyone speaking about how special this trip was. It certainly was for me. Both New Zealand and Australia are now real places to me, not just some far off destination that I've read about in guide books.

Tomorrow we fly to Sydney staying overnight before beginning our long journey home.