Review: Atherton Tablelands Evening Rainforest Tour from Cairns
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Today I’ll see a rare Australian mammal, eat schnitzel in a Swiss-Italian chalet, run around a cow paddock whisper-shouting ‘bubbles!’, and get up close and very personal with a green ant’s, err, rear end — none of which I can even remotely foresee, but all of which constitutes a regular day at the office for my host Paul McLellan.
I’m heading out on an Atherton Tablelands Evening Rainforest Tour from Cairns with Wait-A-While Rainforest Tours, and the 2pm pick-up time is a welcome relief from the usual un-holiday-like early starts on most tours of the region. This is one of the few tours that ventures into the rainforest after dark, and with 80% of our Aussie wildlife enjoying some pretty vigorous nocturnal activity, I’m excited about what’s to come.
Our guide Paul is bang on time to pick me up and we make a couple more stops to pick up the rest of our small party of eight. The minibus evolves into a microcosm of nations, with Holland, America, and Japan represented. My companion and I are the token Aussies.
Watch our video of ten top things to do in Cairns:
Ten Amazing Things to Do in Cairns, QLD | City Guide – The Big Bus
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My slight surprise that this tour is led by an expat Brit is dispelled within 30 seconds of meeting Paul, whose passion for all things Australian is backed by a 20-year exploration of the country. He has a wonderfully warm personality and an encyclopedic knowledge of, well, pretty much everything!
The bio-diverse North Queensland region is home to the highest density of wildlife in Australia (and one of the highest densities in the world), and Paul explains that we’ll be travelling through a number of contrasting habitats.
Our first stop is an outer suburb of Cairns, where we meet a group of agile wallabies hanging out in a paddock and Paul gives us a lesson on using binoculars — the most important accessory for the trip. It’s also here that he convinces all of us (in varying states of squeamishness) to lick the aforementioned green ant’s posterior, assuring us it’s an Indigenous delicacy. I’m here to tell you that it didn’t taste half bad and no ants were harmed!
After conquering the twists and turns of the climb up the Gillies Range (263 of them!), we arrive at the Danbulla National Park and State Forest in the Atherton Tableland. It’s a short walk to see the magnificent 800-year-old Cathedral Fig. The calls of whipbirds fill the air, along with Paul’s very relatable blend of history, botany, geology and the odd bit of comedy.
Our next destination is Lake Barrine — a volcanic crater lake that was created some 17,000 years ago. Here Paul serves us afternoon tea, which he conjures up from the back of the bus. He reveals that we’re sharing our picnic shelter with a colony of bats that live in the roof, and we’re able to get a very close look at them. We head into the rainforest along the trail that runs around the perimeter of the lake, before encountering the massive, mind-blowing bulk of the famous Twin Kauri Pines. These trees are estimated to have stood here for a millennium. A few of us enjoy a surreal swing on a massive hanging vine as thick as a leg.
We hop back on our little bus and drive on for a spell, before pulling up in front of a fragmented grove of rainforest habitat that you’d never look at twice. It turns out to be a highlight of the tour. Paul has spotted several rare tree kangaroos! Buoyed by that sighting, his contagious enthusiasm is in full flight by the time we reach our platypus viewing site (a private creek running through a paddock, complete with numerous cow pats).
Binoculars in hand we scurry around the banks following Paul’s shouted whispers of ‘over there, bubbles!’ — learning that platypuses have around 45 seconds of underwater time before emerging for a breath. Luck and the gods of the Tablelands are on our side and we enjoy multiple sightings of these very cute animals, along with an absolutely breathtaking sunset.
After a delicious included dinner of Swiss-Italian-style favourites at famous Nick’s Restaurant, we head off for a session of wildlife spotlighting. But first we’re introduced to another of Paul’s passions as he guides us through the Milky Way, planet by planet, star by star, with our feet planted slap in the middle of a deserted bitumen road in the heart of the rainforest. It is, for me at least, an absolutely magical moment.
Paul’s eagle-eyes and spotlight alert us to active possums and other nocturnal wildlife for the next hour or so, before we call it a night and return to the bus. Our journey back down the Gillies is set against a soundtrack of all-Australian music, which is hugely nostalgic for my companion and I and fabulously bemusing for some of the others!
As a North Queensland resident, I thought there wasn’t much I didn’t know about this spectacular rainforest habitat and its wildlife. However, thanks to Paul’s knowledge, hospitality and generosity of spirit, this Atherton Tablelands Evening Rainforest Tour from Cairns has left me with a deeper appreciation for the environment and an understanding of just how much I still have to learn!
The writer travelled as a guest of Wait-A-While Rainforest Tours. You can book this tour here.
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Cover image: Tourism and Events Queensland. Additional images: Bigstock
About the writer
Julietta Henderson is a Melbourne-based travel writer and author. Originally planning to visit London for six months, she ended up staying for ten years and now divides her time between her home in Australia and several months of the year in the UK, Italy, and France. Julietta has travelled extensively through Europe, North America, Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, and Russia, and believes the keys to a great travel experience are an open heart, an open mind, and an open-ended ticket. Her first two novels — The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman and Sincerely, Me — are now available in bookstores.
