Australia’s five most incredible rainforest drives

Australia is world-renowned for its coastal and desert attractions but we’ve got lots of beautiful bushland too - and some of it is that lush, damp version known as rainforest. The best way to see it is by foot on a walking trail but to get to the best bits you’ll need a car. Here are our five favourite rainforest drives.

The Otways and the Great Ocean Road feature justifiably famous beaches, seaside towns and idyllic views. But head inland and you’ll find temperate rainforest: cool gullies lined with giant tree ferns, towering eucalypts and, during winter at least, plenty of rainfall and incredible waterfalls.

Turtons Track is a sinuous and scenic route that cuts across the middle, taking in Beech Forest and rejoining the GOR at Lavers Hill. Along the way, don’t miss the popular Otway Fly elevated walkway that takes you 600 metres above the rainforest’s canopy for spectacular tree-top views.

In the Great Dividing Range on the border between Queensland and NSW, there are a plethora of National Parks replete with lush, semi-tropical rainforest.

For a taster of the region’s best rainforests head via Lions Road, built by the local Lions Club in the early 1970s. Starting at the picturesque town of Kyogle, head up to Wiangaree and turn onto Grady’s Creek Road, which becomes Lions Road.

The road takes you through Mount Barney National Park, where you can take in photo-worthy scenic lookouts, perfectly-placed picnic grounds, the tortuous Border Loop Railway and your pick of beautiful trails of varying difficulties.

Keep going and you’ll reach the World Heritage listed Gondwana Rainforests within the Border Ranges National Park.

If you’ve made it as far as Cairns, keep going to Kuranda, a quaint hilltop market town. We highly recommend the drive along the Kennedy Highway that climbs the escarpment through tropical rainforest. But then again, you’d miss out on the famous Kuranda Scenic Railway and the vertigo-inducing Skyrail cable car that takes you back to the coast above and sometimes through the rainforest canopy. Our suggestion? Do all three: drive, train and Skyrail. Perfect.

Head north from tourist-haven Port Douglas and travel along the Captain Cook Highway for postcard-perfect ocean views on one side and lush verdant forests on the other.

You’ll reach the Daintree National Park, which is what it’s all about: both the river with its croc-feeding tours, and the pristine rainforest with its enchanting splendour and sometimes bizarre plants.

Past Cape Tribulation, the road continues to Cooktown through remote but non-the-less picturesque countryside via the Bloomfield Track. Although accessible by two-wheel-drive car (with caution, in dry weather only) a 4WD would be a safer choice. The fully sealed alternative, Mulligan Highway, makes for an unforgettable, approximately 500km round trip.

Rainforest in Tassie you ask? Well, not the tropical kind, but the west coast features some of the earth’s oldest, densest and most picturesque tracts of forest -- and plenty of rain.

The Lyell Highway runs from Hobart to Strahan and once you get to Derwent Bridge the forest closes in: beech trees drip with moss, tree ferns filter the light and it’s all a bit Lord of the Rings. Stop to check out Lake St Clair, and don’t miss the Franklin River Nature Trail (a short walking loop through the bush) and the spectacular Nelson Falls.

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