The Daintree forest is eighty km north of Cairns in Queensland. It is the largest and one of the oldest section of rainforest in Australia. The Daintree has survived almost unchanged for 100 million years. This World Heritage site contains some flowering plant species that first flowered 100 million years ago, from which all plants came from. The Daintree area rainforests are the second largest after the Amazon rainforest in South America. There are over 1000 species of plants and some are older than the Amazon rainforest species. Some plant species in the Daintree are over 3000 years old. Biologists regard the Daintree as a museum of plants. In the Daintree there are more ancient plant groups than in any other tropical forest in the world.
The Daintree is an environment of rainforests and coastal beaches and mangrove swamps. It is mostly famous for its palm trees and species like frogs, lizards fish, turtles bandicoots wallabies and the rare striped possum. On the river, cruise boats sail between the jungle homes of birds to the animals and crocodiles. Many bird watchers go to look at the birds such as Sunbirds, wild ducks, kingfishers, herons and jabirus and many other tropical birds. The gardens are filled with colourful native plants and butterflies- the Blue Ulysses and the spectacular Cairns Birdwing which is Australia's largest butterfly.
