Welcome to Cairns

Cairns General Tourist Info

This area of Queensland is the only place where two World Heritage sites - the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics Rainforest lie next to each other. Cairns is the way to these natural treasures, as well as to artificial tourist destinations like the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway. The city is also a gateway to isles of the Great Barrier Reef and the grasslands of the Gulf Savannah.

When international tourism to the Great Barrier Reef boomed 10-20 years ago, the small sugar town of Cairns prospered along with it. The city now offers outstanding hotels, offshore isles resorts, big Reef-cruise catamarans in the harbor, and countless souvenir shops. The only beach right in town is an artificial 4000 square meters saltwater lagoon and man made beach on the Esplanade.
The over hundred-million-year-old rainforest, the Daintree, where plants that are fossils elsewhere in the world exist living, is just a couple of hours north of the city. The Daintree is part of the Wet Tropics, a UNESCO listed area that stretches from north of Townsville to south of Cooktown, beyond Cairns, and is a home of about half of all Australia's animal and plant species.
If you are spending more than a day or two in that region, consider visiting the city's beautiful northern beaches, in Kuranda and in Port Douglas.

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