17 Best Sights in Great Barrier Reef, Queensland

Hugely popular with locals and visitors, especially in stinger season, this stinger-free swimming enclosure on Airlie's shorefront has dedicated lap-swimming lanes, real-sand "beaches," adjoining children's pools, and sensor-activated lighting after dark. There are toilets, showers, and change rooms nearby, and all pools are patrolled by trained lifeguards year-round. Surrounding the lagoon are a children's playground and a tropical garden, crisscrossed with walkways and dotted with public art, picnic tables, and free electric barbecues. Amenities: food and drink; lifeguards; showers; toilets. Best for: swimming.

The world's oldest tropical rain forest is an ecological wonderland: 85 of the 120 rarest species on Earth are found here, and new ones are still being discovered. The 22,000-acre park, part of the UNESCO World Heritage–listed Wet Tropics region, stretches along the coast and west into the jungle from Cow Bay, 40 km (25 miles) or around an hour's drive northwest of Mossman. The traditional owners, the Eastern Kuku Yalanji, who live in well-honed harmony with their rain-forest environs, attribute powerful properties to many local sites—so tread sensitively. Prime hiking season here is May through September, and many local operators offer guided Daintree rain-forest walks, longer hikes, and nighttime wildlife-spotting excursions. Gather information and maps from local rangers or the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service's ParksQ website before hiking unguided, and stay on marked trails and boardwalks to avoid damaging your fragile surroundings. Whatever season you go, bring insect repellent.

Fronting Cairns Harbour, this busy boardwalk and recreational zone is the focal point of life in Cairns. Along the walk you'll encounter shady trees and public art, picnic and barbecue facilities, a large saltwater swimming lagoon, volleyball courts, an imaginative kids' playground, a state-of-the-art skate plaza, and areas for fitness, markets, and live entertainment. A shallow, 4,800-square-meter (51,667-square-foot) filtered saltwater lagoon swimming pool with a sandy shore, decking, and shelters, patrolled by lifeguards year-round, provides free, convenient relief from the often sticky air. Along the street opposite and along the marina at the boardwalk's southern end, you'll find hotels, shops, galleries, bars, and eateries.

Dubbed Australia's Cleanest Beach, this palm-flanked stretch of sand—lined with jogging tracks and cycleways, picnic-friendly parklands, and hip beachfront bars—has two swimming enclosures and a long pier perfect for fishing. The beach and its permanent swimming enclosure, Strand Rock Pool, are fitted with temporary nets during box-jellyfish season, November through May. There's also a free, kid-friendly Strand Water Park. All are patrolled by lifeguards daily, with hours varying seasonally. Amenities: food and drink; lifeguards; toilets. Best for: swimming.

About an hour's drive from Cairns, Babinda Boulders is a popular swimming hole, and a sacred Aboriginal site. It's 7 km (5 miles) inland on The Boulders Road from the town of Babinda, accessible via the Bruce Highway about 60 km (37 miles) south of Cairns. You can also hike to the boulders, taking the 19-km (12-mile) Goldfield Track (Wooroonooran National Park) that starts in Goldsborough Valley, southwest of Cairns, and ends in Babinda Boulders car park.

This floating marina's 261 berths bristle with charter fishing, diving, and private vessels, including superyachts up to 197 feet long. At the Reef Fleet Terminal off Marlin Wharf, you'll find tour offices, shops, cafés, and Wi-Fi connectivity. Big-game fishing is a big business here; fish weighing more than 1,000 pounds have been caught in the waters off the reef. Most of the dive boats and catamarans that ply the Great Barrier Reef dock here or at nearby Trinity Wharf.

The summit of pink-granite monolith Castle Hill, 1 km (½ mile) from the city center, provides great views of the city and Magnetic Island. While you're perched on top, think about the proud local resident who, with the aid of several scout troops, spent years in the 1970s piling rubble onto the peak to try to add the 23 feet that would make Castle Hill a mountain, officially speaking—which means a rise of at least 1,000 feet. These days, most people trek to the top along a steep walking track that doubles as one of Queensland's most scenic jogging routes.

Ten minutes' drive southeast of Airlie, Conway National Park is a 54,000-acre expanse of mangroves, woodlands, rocky cliffs, and tropical lowland rain forest that shelters the endangered Proserpine rock wallaby and other rare species, as well as sulfur-crested cockatoos, emerald doves, Australian bush-turkeys, and orange-footed scrubfowl. Most walking trails start at the park's picnic area at the end of Forestry Road, about 10 km (6 miles) from Airlie. Mount Rooper Walking Track, a 5.4-km (3-mile) circuit, meanders uphill through bushland to a lookout with breathtaking Whitsundays views. If time permits, and you're sufficiently fit, you can cycle, run, or walk the 27-km (17-mile) Conway circuit, starting at Forestry Road carpark and ending in Airlie Beach. Swamp Bay track follows the creek to a coral-strewn beach with a bush camping area.

A stroll along Flinders Street from the Strand to Stanley Street takes you past some of Townsville's most impressive turn-of-the-20th-century colonial structures. Magnetic House and several other historic buildings along the strip have been beautifully restored. The grand old Queens Hotel is a fine example of the early Victorian Classical Revival style, as is the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, circa 1885, originally a bank. Tattersalls Hotel, circa 1865, is typical of its era, with wide verandas and fancy wrought-iron balustrades; today, it houses the rambunctious Molly Malones Irish pub. Once the town's post office, what's now The Brewery had an impressive masonry clock tower when it was erected in 1889. The tower was dismantled in 1942 so it wouldn't be a target during World War II air raids, and re-erected in 1964. The Exchange, Townsville's oldest pub, was built in 1869, burned down in 1881, and was rebuilt the following year.

A strenuous, not especially scenic walk or short drive from Cooktown lie Grassy Hill and the lighthouse, spectacular lookouts affording panoramic views of Cooktown, the Endeavour River, and the Coral Sea. Follow in the footsteps of Captain James Cook, who scaled the slope to view the reef and navigate his boat's safe passage out. The lighthouse, shipped from England in 1885, helped boats avoid the reef for a century before being rendered obsolete; it was then restored as a historical relic.

A scenic section of the Bruce Highway locals call the Great Green Way links Cairns with Townsville, taking you through sugarcane, papaya, and banana plantations, past white-sand beaches and an island-dotted ocean. The 348-km (216-mile) drive takes about 4½ hours. Allow time to explore towns, parks, and rain-forest tracts along the way.

This interpretive center and museum at the entrance to Cooktown's Heritage-listed Botanic Gardens is home to a valuable collection of local botanical illustrations by internationally recognized artist Vera Scarth-Johnson, and impressive displays of Cape York Peninsula wildlife, bequeathed by local fauna expert Charlie Tanner. Take extra time to wander through the gardens, which, with its stone-pitched waterways and shady paths, include 154 acres of colorful native and exotic plants. A popular attraction in the gardens is a 7-meter python carved locally from ironwood. You can enjoy afternoon tea or a light lunch at the Vera Café; browse the shop of botanically themed gifts and souvenirs, including beautiful scarves, prints and postcards, wooden bowls, and authentic Indigenous art; and get regional travel tips from the on-site Cooktown and Cape York Peninsula Visitor Information Centre.

Offering shade and serenity less than a mile from the CBD, Townsville's colonial-era botanic gardens occupies 10 verdant acres at the base of Castle Hill. Bordered by frangipani (plumeria) and towering Moreton Bay fig trees, whose unique dangling roots veil the entry to the grounds, the gardens are a wonderful place to picnic, stroll, or amuse the kids. There are play areas, a hedge maze, formal rose garden, fountains, and a lovely rain-forest walk. A compact aviary houses bright-plumed peacocks, lorikeets, and sulfur-crested cockatoos.

Spot wallabies, echidnas, dingoes, goannas, and hundreds of bird species at this terrific wetlands conservation park crisscrossed by walking and biking trails, and dotted with bird blinds and a wildlife-viewing tower. You can take the easy, hour-long Forest Walk to see kingfishers and honey-eaters, the Pallarenda to Tegoora Rock circuit for wetlands overviews, or several other walking and biking trails (with estimated walk times ranging from 30 minutes to five hours). The 5-km (3-mile), two-plus-hour-long trail from Bald Rock to Mount Marlowl is worth the uphill trek for the glorious regional panorama at the summit. Most trails start from Bald Rock parking lot, 7 km (4½ miles) from the park entrance on unpaved roads.

In the wettest zone of the Wet Tropics World Heritage area, the mighty Tully River is a magnet for white-water rafters, while the gorge's scenic, often mist-shrouded trails suit walkers of all levels. Access Tully Gorge National Park via the town of Tully, 141 km (88 miles) or about two hours' drive south of Cairns, then continue for 54 km (34 miles)—approximately 40 minutes—along Jarra Creek and Cardstone roads to Kareeya Hydroelectric Station parking lot and viewing platform. Other excellent vantage points are the Tully Falls lookout, 24 km (15 miles) south of Ravenshoe, and the Flip Wilson and Frank Roberts lookouts.

Surrounding the highest sheer-drop waterfall in Australia is glorious Girringun National Park, in which ancient rain forests accessible via scenic walking trails shelter rare plants and animals that include the endangered southern cassowary, platypus, and musky rat-kangaroo. You might also spot eastern water dragons, saw-shelled turtles, and crocodiles here. The park is the start of the Wet Tropics Great Walk, suitable for experienced hikers. For day-trippers, there are two spectacular lookouts and some scenic short walks, such as the 45-minute Banggurru circuit along Stony Creek's bank, or the steeper, two-hour walk to the base of the falls.

Extending south of Gordonvale to the Palmerston Highway near Innisfail, this is one of the most densely vegetated areas in Australia. Rain forest rules, from the lowland tropical variety to the stunted growth on Mt. Bartle Frere (at 5,287 feet, the highest point in Queensland). Walking tracks range from the stroll-in-the-park Tchupala Falls and Josephine Falls circuits (30 minutes each) to the challenging Walshs Pyramid track, just south of Cairns, and the grueling two-day Bartle Frere trail. You may camp throughout the park with permits.