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Exploring Queensland's UNESCO World Heritage Sites with an Aboriginal guide

Australia is home to 20 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. And a number of them lie in Queensland. Here’s how to explore two with an Aboriginal guide.

Exploring the Great Barrier Reef with Indigenous guides, Dreamtime Dive & Snorkel, Queensland © Tourism Australia

Exploring the Great Barrier Reef with Indigenous guides, Dreamtime Dive & Snorkel, Queensland © Tourism Australia

Great Barrier Reef

The scale of the Great Barrier Reef is staggering. It’s actually made up of more than 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands, which are scattered some 2,300 kilometres across the Queensland coast from the tip of Cape York Peninsula in the north to Bundaberg in the south..

But this isn’t the only thing that makes it ‘great’, as you’ll discover when you join Indigenous sea rangers on a Dreamtime Dive & Snorkel cruise from Cairns. “This is one of the most complex ecosystems on the planet,” says Quinn Ross-Passi, a Master Reef Guide and dive instructor with Dreamtime. It’s home to 10 per cent of global coral gardens and the same proportion of the world’s fish species, including 30 types of whales, dolphins and porpoises. Six species of sea turtles come here to breed, alongside 215 different types of birds.

Discovering the marine life of the Great Barrier Reef while floating about with Indigenous guides © Tourism Australia

Discovering the marine life of the Great Barrier Reef while floating about with Indigenous guides © Tourism Australia

With permission from Yindinji Elders, Quinn and his fellow Indigenous sea rangers tell the 65,000-year-old Dreamtime Creation story of this important marine environment. In between stories, they reveal Indigenous artefacts: a didgeridoo (which they perform with immense skill); clapsticks; intricately carved wooden coolamon (carrying baskets). When you reach Moore Reef – one of those 2,900 individual reefs that complete the big picture – guides hand out flippers and masks so you can splash about admiring giant clams, moray eels and tropical fish. Here, nature truly humbles.

Kuku Yalanji Guide revealing the beauty of the rainforest at Mossman Gorge, Queensland © Tourism Australia

Kuku Yalanji Guide revealing the beauty of the rainforest at Mossman Gorge, Queensland © Tourism Australia

Wet Tropics of Queensland

An iridescent Ulysses butterfly flits over a waterhole, lingering on mossy boulders and darting between impossibly lush trees. The only sound is the soft patter of dew, falling between leaves, and the hum of dragonflies. Mossman Gorge is simply magical. And spiritual. Kuku Yalanji guides on the Ngadiku Dreamtime Walk from Mossman Gorge Centre through this pocket of the Daintree Rainforest explain that butterflies are known as ‘walbul walbul’ in the local language, and that they’re believed to be Aboriginal Elders sent to look over those who still walk on Land.

Soaking up the beauty of Mossman Gorge, Queensland, from a quiet river perch © Tourism Australia

Soaking up the beauty of Mossman Gorge, Queensland, from a quiet river perch © Tourism Australia

Aside from being an incredibly sacred destination for Aboriginal communities, the Wet Tropics of Queensland is an astounding habitat for flora and fauna, many of them found nowhere else on the planet. Across its nearly 900,000 hectares, this mostly tropical rainforest is thought to be the oldest of its kind in the world, estimated to be more than 100 million years old. It’s carved by rivers and gorges, waterfalls and mountains, which protect around a third of Australia’s mammal species – not to mention the birds. And most of them, Juan Walker knows just by sound.

Kuku Yalanji man Juan leads tours around Mossman Gorge and Cooya Beach through his company Walkabout Cultural Adventures, retracing and reliving the footsteps and stories of his family, who raised him here. Spending a day with him, you forage for pipis and mud crabs, crack open almonds and decode bush medicine – Juan also guides you to some of the region’s most significant cultural sites.

Juan’s brothers, Linc and Brandon Walker, share a passion for this part of the world, and through the ‘Daintree Dreaming’ experiences with Down Under Tours, offer intimate stories about where they grew up. You can choose to spend a day delving into Aboriginal art and culture, or sign up to go fishing – the traditional way, spear in hand.

Exploring the mangroves around Cooya Beach with Walkabout Cultural Adventures, Queensland © Tourism Australia

Exploring the mangroves around Cooya Beach with Walkabout Cultural Adventures, Queensland © Tourism Australia

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