The gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics rainforest — where the largest coral reef ecosystem in the world (2,300 km, visible from space, 1,500 species of fish) begins offshore, the Daintree Rainforest (the oldest tropical rainforest on earth, 180 million years old) is 2 hours north, the Kuranda Rainforest Village sits in cloud forest above the city, and the Esplanade lagoon lets you swim year-round in one of Australia's most genuinely tropical cities
Cairns (155,000; metro 170,000) is the principal city of Far North Queensland and one of the most strategically located tourism cities on earth — the single city that provides the most accessible gateway to both the Great Barrier Reef (16 km offshore from Cairns) and the Wet Tropics of Queensland (UNESCO 1988, one of the oldest rainforests on earth). The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (2,300 km in length, 344,400 sq km in area, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981) is the world's largest living structure — 3,000 individual reef systems and coral cays, 1,500 species of fish, 4,000 ty…
The Yirrganydji and Djabugay peoples occupied the Cairns coastal area for at least 50,000 years before European contact — the Djabugay language (which gave Cairns its Tablelands hinterland its name Kuranda) is now experiencing revival through community and school programs. Cairns was established in 1876 as a port for the Hodgkinson goldfields in the interior — James Cairns, Queensland Police Inspector, gave the town its name after surveying the site. The Kuranda Scenic Railway (1891, 34 km from Cairns to Kuranda) was built by hand by 1,500 workers through rainforest mountain terrain using exp…