Ultimate Wildlife Safari North Queensland

Early morning pickup from your Cairns hotel and drive north into the Daintree Rainforest, 120,000ha of ancient tropical rainforest, the largest in Australia. The day is built around quiet nature trails and private property access, with the southern cassowary as the principal target species. Other likely encounters include Boyd’s forest dragon, Papuan frogmouth, Bennett’s tree-kangaroo, striped possum, azure and little kingfisher, Ulysses butterfly, white-lipped tree frog, green tree snake and Australian scrub python. The hottest part of the day is spent in one of the Daintree’s freshwater rainforest creeks before returning to the park for the afternoon session. An evening nocturnal walk extends the day into the Daintree’s after-dark world. Overnight: Heritage Lodge, Cape Tribulation. Meals: L/D.

The day opens on the Daintree River with a private boat cruise that has a 99% crocodile sighting success rate, providing low-impact wildlife observation from the water. Great-billed heron, little and azure kingfisher, black bittern, black-necked stork, white-bellied sea-eagle, spectacled flying fox and saltwater crocodile are among the regular sightings. After lunch, the route heads inland through Julatten, where the landscape shifts from coastal rainforest to open savannah. The late afternoon at Granite Gorge offers the best chance of the day for the endemic Mareeba rock-wallaby on the granite outcrops, alongside red-backed fairywren, rainbow bee-eater and dollarbird. Overnight: Chambers Wildlife Lodge, Atherton Tablelands. Meals: B/L/D.

The morning is spent at Yungaburra’s mountain streams for platypus, a location that provides reliable sightings in clear water, with no time pressure. After lunch, visit Lake Eacham and Lake Barrine in Crater Lakes National Park. Both lakes were formed around 10,000 years ago by volcanic explosions and reach 65m deep; the lake edges regularly produce red-legged pademelon, musky rat-kangaroo, saw-shell turtle and eastern water dragon. Optional evening nocturnal spotlighting covers the Tablelands’ most productive after-dark habitats for leaf-tailed geckos, Lemuroid possums, green ringtail and Herbert River ringtail possums, lesser sooty owl and a diversity of frogs. Overnight: Chambers Wildlife Lodge. Meals: B/L/D.

Two morning walks in Malanda Conservation Park target the Lumholtz tree-kangaroo, a species so difficult to find that early European settlers considered it mythical; no Western person had seen one until 113 years after Cook’s landing in Australia. Green ringtail possum, Boyd’s forest dragon, eastern whipbird and red-legged pademelon are also regularly encountered in the park. After lunch, visit the Tolga Bat Hospital, a community conservation program rescuing and rehabilitating bats through hands-on care, advocacy, education and research. Overnight: Chambers Wildlife Lodge. Meals: B/L/D.

The final day opens at Hasties Swamp National Park, a large seasonal wetland with over 220 recorded bird species and a bird hide for waterbird viewing: magpie goose, brolga, sarus crane, jabiru, royal spoonbill, black swan, pelican and darter are regularly seen. After lunch in Malanda, Mount Hypipamee National Park offers a volcanic pipe formation and further tree-kangaroo possibilities before the tour closes at the Curtain Fig Tree, a strangler fig whose fallen host tree left a curtain of aerial roots now several metres long. Return to Cairns by approximately 4:30pm.