wanderboys

Two of us will be in Port Douglas-Cairns area beginning of Sept. for four land-based days wrapped around a four-night liveaboard dive trip. We're looking for a good rainforest tour with both scenery and wildlife, more active the better. How different are Atherton Tableland and Daintree Rainforest - different enough to warrant two tours? If only one, which is better? Also trying to choose between Pete Baxendell and Wait-A-While tours.

Also looking at staying in Mission Beach for a couple nights (will definitely do a Tully whitewater day). How is the area recovering from Cyclone Larry?

Any advice much appreciated.

LynAK

You will probably get a much more detailed response from Pat W. but my 2 cents is that the Tablelands and Daintree are completely different. To see the differences you should check out the websites for the areas. The Tablelands has a nice one at http://www.athertontableland.com/ My husband really loves this part of QLD, higher and drier. I like the rainforest and beaches (Mission Beach has some great beaches, too). But I think the Tablelands is definitely worth a visit. Beautiful waterfalls along the way, too. There are lots of little towns which give you a more non-touristy feel of Australia.

pat_woolford

LynAK is right, you do need to check their websites to make a comparison as they are such different areas, even climatically. But both are very worthwhile.

Wait-A-While does afternoon/night trips for nocturnal wildlife spotting in both Daintree and Atherton Tableland, and they'd be the first to tell you that they consistently spot more variety of wildlife on the Tableland trip in its tropical highland rainforest.

Mission Beach did suffer from Cyclone Larry, the rainforest is coming back, but it'll be a while before its back to its original lushness. Still very worthwhile visiting, both for its beaches and hinterland. And of course easy access to Tully River for whitewater rafting. Due to cycone, at the moment, there is no access to Babinda Boulders.

TreeRoo

Wanderboys,
The Tablelands is the better area for wildlife if you are after the endemics of the Wet Tropics. 'Active tour' and 'wildlife' don't gell in my thinking. You may have chosen by now but I suggest that you do a tour for the active part and hire a car for the wildlife part. that will mean that you need to do some homework to identify the species if that is important to you.