One moment you are walking through dense greenery, then suddenly a clearing opens up to a panorama of the coast of the Coral Sea. A new long-distance coastal trail for hikers and mountain bikers is being developed in Australia’s tropical northeast.
The Wangetti Trail runs along the coast of the Great Barrier Reef and through rainforest, and holidaymakers can already explore an initial section, just under eight kilometers long, which is now open between Palm Cove and Ellis Beach.
The entire 94 kilometer Wangetti Trail is expected to be completed by the end of 2026 and extend to Port Douglas.
The open section, for which 17 bridges were built alone, runs through the rainforest and offers numerous impressive views of the Coral Sea. The Wangetti Trail is located north of Cairns in the state of Queensland.
The state is perhaps best known for snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef and the surfing beaches of the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast near Brisbane. If you’re only seeing one part of Australia, this might be your best option, as it has the highest concentration of things that make this country so exciting.
The Queensland rainforest, which was declared a World Heritage Site in the 1980s, is said to have formed 135 million years ago and is considered the oldest tropical rainforest in the world.
Head 250 kilometers into the state, southwest of Cairns, and you’ll discover a whole different world. You can explore lava caves formed thousands of years ago in the Undara Volcanic National Park. There is no forest here, just a single isolated eucalyptus tree, grasses, sparse shrubs and huge termite mounds.
