Getting Around On Your Queensland Holiday
For those intrigued by the diversity of tropical rainforests, Queensland's Wet Tropics World Heritage Area is well worth visiting. Birds of paradise, cassowaries and a wide array of other birds can be seen by day, while at nighttime you can search for a tree kangaroo. Also during the night, you are going to be able to see curious possums, some of which are almost like skunks, and other marsupials that these days are limited to a small area of northeast Queensland.
Australia's deserts are a bit of a hit and miss affair as far as wildlife is concerned. If you are visiting during a drought year, all you might see are red, dusty plains, the odd group of Kangaroos and emus and a few sorry looking trees. Return after big rain however and you are likely to encounter something resembling an idea of the Garden of Eden. Fields of wildflowers, such as white and gold daisies, stretch endlessly into the distance, perfuming the air with their fragrance. The salt lakes fill with fresh water and millions of water birds-pelicans, stilts, shags and gulls - can be seen feeding on the super abundant fish and insect life of the waters. It all seems like a mirage and like a mirage it will vanish quickly if the land dries out, only to spring to life again in a few years or decades time. The fantastic diversity of Queensland's Great Barrier Reef is legendary and a boat trip out to the reef from Cairns or Port Douglas is unforgettable.
Australia's plants can be fascinating to observers, the diversity of prolific flowering plants on the continent has long puzzled botanists. Again, and Australia's poor soils seem to be the cause of the confusion. Sandy desert plains are about the poorest soils in Australia, made up of almost pure quartz with few nutrients, this prevents any single fast growing species have learned to find the narrow niches of their own and so many species co-exist. Some live in the meter high sand dunes, some on top, some on east facing slopes, some on the west etc.The plants flowers need to be strikingly colored to attract pollinators, because nutrients are so lacking in this sandy world where insects such as bees are very rare.
Queensland has 506 areas of environmental or natural importance, making up just over 4% of the state's 1,727,200 sq km. Of these areas, 219 are national parks, some of which comprise only a single hill or lake, while others are vast expanses of wilderness.The remainder are a mix of state parks, resources, reserves and nature refuges. Queensland is also home to five of Australia's 16 Unesco World Heritage sites. The Wet Tropics Worlds Heritage Area, which spans 450km of Queensland's northern coast, and the Great Barrier Reef are acknowledged as two of the world's most diverse eco systems.
In Queensland's northwest the Riversleigh Australian Fossil Mammal Site is one of the world's 10 top fossil sites. Then there's Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island as well as home to a diversity of fragile and complex ecosystems, which includes lush rainforests and clear lakes. To obtain any information about these spots, get in touch with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service that are usually come across in many major towns.
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