Daintree Rainforest

Be Amazed

Discover the Daintree Rainforest

The Daintree Rainforest is the oldest continuously surviving tropical rainforest in the world!

It is truly an amazing place – a living time capsule of land plants, marsupials and songbirds.

Discover and enjoy!

Amazing Facts about the Daintree Rainforest

World Heritage Listed

The Wet Tropics region was added to the world heritage list in 1988.

Largest Tropical Rainforest in Australia

The Daintree Rainforest encompasses an area of approximately 1,200 square kilometres.

It’s the size of 25,000 football fields!

162 Sydney Harbours could fit in the Daintree!

Amazing Biodiversity

There are more tree species in 1 hectare of the wet tropics rainforest than the entire United Kingdom!

The World’s Oldest Rainforest

The Daintree Rainforest is estimated to be 180 million years old which is tens of millions of years older than the Amazon Rainforest.

Amazing Wildlife

The Daintree Rainforest is home to an amazing 65% of all of Australia’s bat & butterfly species, 28% of frogs, 40% of birds, 34% of mammals & 65% of ferns in Australia. There are also over 12,000 types of insects and over 200 species of land snails.

Explore the Daintree Rainforest

Stick to the boardwalks or walking tracks.

Please don't feed the wildlife.

Keep a safe distance from Cassowaries.

Apply insect repellant. Keep repellant out of the streams.

Do not eat forest fruits or fungi.

Take any rubbish with you.

Look up! It's amazing what you might spot in the tree canopies!

Daintree Rainforest Boardwalks, walks & lookouts

The Daintree Rainforest is a living museum of many habitats – mangroves, rainforests, creeks, swamps, beaches and an enormous variety of plants and animals. These rainforests are botanically unique. They have changed very little over millions of years with many rare, endemic and primitive plants found here.

The boardwalks and rainforest tracks throughout the Daintree Coast provide a wonderful platform for visitors to explore and discover the natural beauty and amazing diversity of the Daintree Rainforest. Find out more about each Daintree Rainforest boardwalk below.

Mount Alexandra Lookout, or Walu Wugirriga which is the local indigenous Kuku Yalanji name pronounced wah-lu-oo-gid-ee-gah, meaning ‘look about’ is a a must see [...]

Mount Alexandra Lookout

Located at the base of Alexandra Range in Cow Bay, Jindalba, meaning 'foot of the mountain' in local Eastern Kuku Yalanji language is where [...]

Jindalba Boardwalk

Madja (mud-ja) Daintree Rainforest boardwalk is one of the few places where plants, representing all stages of the evolution of land plants over the [...]

Madja Boardwalk

The Dubuji (meaning ‘place of spirits’) boardwalk is located in Cape Tribulation on the Daintree Coast and takes you through ever changing Daintree lowland [...]

Dubuji Boardwalk

Kulki Boardwalk is located at Kulki / Cape Tribulation beach. Kulki is the local indigenous Kuku Yalanji traditional name for this this area and has [...]

Kulki Boardwalk

Daintree Rainforest Gallery

Below is a gallery of plants, fungi and other features that you may come across in the amazing Daintree Rainforest.

All
Cycads
Ferns
Palms
Figs
Mangroves
Fungi
Other

Strangler fig

Strangler figs do just that… they hug a tree so tightly and in such abundance they end up strangling the host plant of all its nutrients until eventually all that remains is the strangler fig.

In the canopy the strangler fig puts out lots of leaves that soon grow thicker than the host tree and rob it of sunlight. Eventually the host plant dies from strangulation, insufficient sunlight and root competition, and the strangler fig stands on its own. A hollow center is all that remains of the host.

Hope's Cycad

Hope’s Cycad (Lepidozamia hopei)

Grows approx. 1m per century. Endemic to QLD and although a very slow grower, the Hope’s Cycad is the tallest growing Cycad on Earth.

The species only reproduces once every seven years, with both male & female plants producing large reproductive cones atop their axes. Wind events such as cyclones have been considered to trigger reproduction. Insects such as weevils are also considered to play a role in pollination.

Wait-a-while

Calamus australis aka lawyer cane, wait-a-while, or hairy mary, is a climbing palm endemic to Queensland. The plant has numerous hooks along its leaf sheath, along its leaves, and a long whiplike flagellum stretching out to 3m. Unfortunate people are forced to ‘wait-a-while’ trying to disentangle themselves and pull out the painful barbs.

This plants has many amazing Indigenous uses. (See Kuku Yalanji page for info).

King Fern

A King Fern (Angiopteris evecta) growing along the edge of a creek in the ancient Daintree rainforest. This photo was taken along the Jindalba boardwalk where you’ll find a number of king ferns at one of the viewing platforms overlooking a flowing creek. King Ferns are believed to have the longest fronds of any ferns in the world and can reach up to 9m long!

Tree Ferns

Did you know Tree Ferns are one of the oldest plants on Earth!

They are generally slow growing, at just 25-50 millimetres height increase per year. Some of the incredible tree ferns you will spot in the Daintree Rainforest may be several centuries old.

This photo was taken along the Jindalba boardwalk.

Cannonball Mangrove

Cannonball Mangrove (Xylocarpus granatum) produces a large 20cm fruit containing up to 18 tightly packed seeds. On ripening it explodes, scattering the seeds which float away on the tide.
Also commonly called a ‘Puzzlenut tree’ as the irregular shape of the seeds can be a puzzle to try and put back together to resemble the original spherical shape. You’ll spot these at the Madja boardwalk.

Fungi in the Daintree Rainforest

While the lifestyle of fungi is plant-like – unlike vascular plants fungi does not photosynthesise, but actually ingests food as animals do.
However fungi is not classified as a plant, nor an animal but has been divided into a different kingdom, Kingdom Fungi, based on key distinguishing characteristics.
Fungi plays an important role in decomposition and recycling throughout the forest.

Alexandra Palm

Alexandra Palm (Archontophoenix alexandrae). These bright red fruits provide a valuable food source for many fruit eating birds also musky rat kangaroos and flying foxes. Endemic to Queensland & named in honour of Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The growing bud (palm heart) at the top of the trunk is edible but not recommended as harvesting it kills the tree. The fruit is also said to have been cooked and eaten by some Aboriginal communities.

Swamp Lily

You’ll find me along the beaches of the Daintree Coast & along the rainforest boardwalks. I’m a Crinum pedunculatum – Swamp Lily. My spider leg flowers have an attractive Jasmine-like scent.

Sap from crushing my leaves and stems has been used by Aboriginals in the past as a treatment for marine stingers… I contain the alkaloid lycorine which may be responsible for this effect… though certainly not recommended as a complete cure.

Prop Rooted Mangroves Daintree Rainforest

If trees could walk… Prop-rooted mangroves at Dubuji boardwalk in Cape Tribulation.

These roots spread far and wide providing an anchor for the tree as well as a large area for oxygen absorption.

This Daintree rainforest gallery resource will be added to over time.

Getting to the Daintree Coast

Daintree Ferry

Forest Creek

Kimberley

Cow Bay

Diwan

Thornton Beach

Cape Tribulation