Name: Cooper Creek Wilderness
City, State: Daintree, Wet Tropics QLD Australia
Phone: +61 7 4098 9126
Website:www.ccwild.com
What's it like?
Accepting an invitation to lick the back end
of a live green ant takes some confidence.
But that's what we did at the start of our tour of the Daintree rainforest under the guidance of rainforest enthusiast Prue Hewett.
Plucking the green ant from a nest on a Sour Sop tree, Prue held it out to our bemused group from the nearby Daintree Cape Tribulation Heritage Lodge.
She assured us the ant tasted like sherbet. So we all leaned forward, and took turns licking an ant (we each had our own fresh ant). Indeed, they did taste like sherbet!
Rising to Prue's ant-licking challenge proved to be more than a novelty.
By having such a close encounter with nature early in the walk, we were better
prepared for a fascinating two-hour expos of what is very special about the Daintree.
Prue and her son Neil own and operate Cooper Creek Wilderness, a 100ha
block of World Heritage-listed
rainforest near Daintree, where they provide interpretive walking tours.
As we followed Prue through the screen of pioneer plants on the rainforest edge, we entered a green space, vibrant with life in trees, plants, rocks and pools.
"Our property is a living museum of natural history," Prue said. "Because of the
geological stability of this part of Australia,
the Daintree rainforest has survived with little change for 135 million years,
providing a habitat for many species of flora and fauna that now have a very ancient
lineage."
The tour took us past some species of angiosperms, or flowering trees, which first evolved over 130 million years ago.
"Of the 19 species of angiosperms in the world today, 12 are found here in the rainforest north of the Daintree," Prue said. "Perhaps the rarest of these angiosperm species is the idiospermum australiense or dinosaur tree," she said.
"The dinosaur tree was popular as a cabinet timber, and it was logged apparently to extinction in the early days. Then, in 1971, six local cattle died mysteriously. An autopsy revealed that the large, round (and poisonous) seeds of the dinosaur tree were the cause, and specimens of the tree were sought out and identified in the forest."
Prue said the dinosaur tree was rare because it was slow to propagate.
"It would appear this is because the seeds no longer have a transmitter or vector - a creature that can distribute them around the forest. One theory is that one of the extinct mega fauna, such as the giant wombat, may have been the vector."
Prue pointed out an even more primitive plant high in the canopy of the forest.
"It is called the tassel fern and its species has been fossil-dated back 415 million years. It is believed to be one of the first plants to come out of the sea and make it on land."
The animal life of the Daintree is ancient as well.
Prue spotted a Boyd's Forest Dragon, a 20cm lizard camouflaged by its colouring against the straight trunk of a black palm.
"The Boyd's forest dragon appears to have survived as a species for 20 million years, so was around for a long time before Australia split from Gondwana. This makes it a living dinosaur," she said.
Some plants are ancient and slow. For example, there were specimens of the very primitive cycad species near the walking trail that were only 15m to 20m tall - yet Prue said they would have been mature trees when Captain Cook sailed by the Daintree coast in 1770.
"Cycads only grow about a centimetre a year, so those are up to 2,000 years old," she said.
At one stage in the walk, we entered a magnificent gallery of tall fan palms where the fading light of an overcast day threw a translucent green hue over the scene, giving it a primordial atmosphere.
"This perspective would have changed little since the Jurassic Age when dinosaurs roamed the earth and Australia was part of the supercontinent of Gondwana," Prue said.
Prue's tour showed us how much of the rainforest is still a mystery to science.
Along the way, she pointed out several new botanical species that have yet to be classified. This included a species first noticed near Cooper Creek a few years ago that Prue simply called the "little pea-plant" because of the pea-shaped fruit on its trunk, while waiting for a scientific name to be assigned.
"The plant life here is much more diverse than people realise," Prue said. "There are more than 3,000 varieties of rainforest plants already on record north of the Daintree River. Many botanists come through the area, but what are the chances of their picking up on everything?"
"Also, up in the canopy where people don't go, there are thousands of plant and insect species that are yet to be identified."
Prue also showed us how some plants need conditions to change before their growth is stimulated.
She showed us a small understorey plant, called a haplostichanthus, which had not flowered for at least 13 years since she had been watching it. Then, when the forest was damaged in a cyclone, the canopy was opened up, and the plant flowered.
Prue explained how everything had a place in the ecosystem.
"Every plant has an optimum height," she said. "For example, the Javan ash stops growing just under the canopy because it doesn't like too much light. On the other hand, the wait-a-while palm will use its hooked tendrils to climb ever upwards through the forest until it reaches the canopy and spreads across the top."
As we passed a termite mound, Prue pointed out a small, dark hole in the side as the entrance to the nest of the paradise kingfisher, a colourful Daintree bird that migrates from Papua New Guinea each spring.
"The male kingfisher excavates the chamber in the mound in the hope of attracting a female to lay her eggs in it," Prue said. "The termites, who don't like light, seal off the walls, leaving the chamber private but still at a constant temperature which is useful for incubating the eggs."
She said there was a rainforest goanna that liked to take advantage of the kingfishers' efforts.
"The termite mound is the goanna's preferred accommodation but it can't dig out the chamber itself. So it waits until the kingfishers have set up house, then goes into the nest, eats the kingfisher eggs, and lays its own eggs in there."
Prue explained that the Cooper Creek Wilderness property had been developed
through a National Heritage Estates Grant to provide tourists with a full appreciation
of the forest.
"We were funded to provide a style and standard of interpretation that would help
to explain the significance of World Heritage listing of the Wet
Tropics to a greater depth than was offered on other guided, interpreted walks
and signed boardwalks in this region," she said.
Cooper Creek Wilderness has advanced ecotourism accreditation under the National Ecotourism Accreditation Program, sponsored by Tourism Queensland.
Cooper Creek Wilderness is located 20km north of the Daintree River.
For more information:
Tourism Tropical North Queensland
Tel +61 7 4031 7676
- By Chris Davidson
If you know of a great destination we're missing,
review it for us!!
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