The Australian gem worth discovering

Why tropical North Queensland is a gem worth discovering

Words: Jane Nicholls Producer: Louise Starkey

If the mood in travel now is about staying longer, exploring deeper and unearthing the gems on our doorstep, tropical North Queensland is a part of the country not to miss.

It's a vast landscape, saturated with colour — f rom mossy green rainforests to blue seas, inky-fern rivers and turquoise water revealing a pageant of showy fish as you float over a teeming reef.

The mountains pop out like shadow puppets from the plains and a honey haze settles over the cane fields as you drive through them at dusk along gunbarrel-straight roads.

Visitors can day-trip in the Daintree , marvelling at primeval forests, epic rivers and ice-cream whipped up with exotic local fruits. They can visit the Mossman Gorge , where you can take Dreamtime Walks with Indigenous guides. There is also a scenic railway from Cairns up to Kuranda, which retains its village charm despite having been a tourist destination for more than a century.

Despite being in a regional area, Cairns is anything but a small town.

Take a walk along the Esplanade, home to the city's new $28 million dining precinct, a pedestrian- and weather-friendly smorgasbord of cuisines and also featuring a towering vertical garden. The striking Woven Fish sculptures floating above the Esplanade's recently revamped lagoon — swimmable all year and guaranteed croc-free — are a reminder that Cairns is a flourishing cultural city, too.

The Cairns Indigenous Art Fair , which began in 2009, attracts collectors from around the world. Rusty's Markets is a much older institution, conjuring up tastes of the tropics with a distinctly Asian sensibility since 1975. The main game is native produce and street food, but visitors will find bric-a-brac stalls jumbled in there, too.

Turning inland, the back country of far north Queensland has a vibrant palette and intoxicating flavour all its own.

In a half-hour, 100-kilometre helicopter ride northwest from Cairns, visitors will reach a bush-topped sandstone escarpment looming over eucalyptus woodlands, where the bluff is golden pink in the afternoon light. It's where the Mount Mulligan Lodge sits — set deep in the outback, unfurling on an expansive pastoral property. Activities include sunrise hikes, all-terrain-vehicle adventures, fishing, tours of former gold fields and paddle-boarding on a river gum-ringed weir.

For visitors seeking a rainforest adventure, the Daintree Ecolodge is an idyllic stay, with the opportunity to be cocooned in "bayans", or treehouses, in a secluded, soothing setting. Visitors can book in for a spa day or venture out on the Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsundays. They have access to both via motor yachts bobbing gently in the marinas at Cairns and Port Douglas.

For visitors wanting to stay on the reef, fringed by sand and exquisitely designed, Orpheus Island Lodge is a grand option. It welcomes only 28 guests and has its own superyacht, the M.Y. Flying Fish, in residence, unlocking true reef indulgence. This jewel of the Whitsundays hosts an annual sailing race week, a favourite on the international sailing calendar.

Swipe up to see other fantastic resorts to stay at, sights to visit and activities to do while basking in the sunshine and warmth of tropical North QLD. Learn more