The Rainforest in Queensland

Life under the rainforest canopy is in an endless battle to reach the sun above.  Plants are not only  siphoning life from other plants, but also snagging unsuspecting humans (like me).

The Skyway Rainforest Cableway, almost five miles long, goes from Cairns through the rainforest to Kuranda, with stops along the way.  I leave the gondola for a stroll in the forest canopy on a walkway in the tree tops, high above the ground.  Dense greenery and rainforest sounds engulf me: a waterfall, a whippoorwill, rustling leaves, insect hums.  Tropical rainforests have as much as fifty percent of all the world’s known plants and animals, even though they form less than two per cent of the earth’s surface. 

The dampness is oppressive.  Parts of the walkway have dappled sunlight, others are immersed in shadow. Below is the dim forest floor where everything reaches up in a battle for light.  Above—the heavy greenery of the victors of those light wars.  And where I stand many feet above ground—trunks, branches, vines, and leaves, all struggling to get to light.

There’s a strangler fig wrapping itself around other trees.  It injects something to make the host tree rot faster, and then feeds on the decaying host.   

Below me and near by are giant fiddlehead ferns (you can see a few in the photo above), dwarfing the spring delicacies of New England.  There’s the large ball of a termite nest siphoning life from a tree branch.  When the branch is hollow, it might become a bird home, or fall to the ground to become part of the next life cycle…or maybe become a didgeridoo (more on didgeridoos later).

Nearby there’s a whole screen of vines similar to the strangler.  This ‘curtain fig’ takes over trees, sending out aerial roots that stream downward forming a curtain in search of life (sounds like the makings of a horror movie).   Every single thing here has developed some unique survival aide.

As I head back to the gondola, one of nature’s unique survival aides catches my shirt.  Literally.  A vine with aggressive hooks has latched on to the back of my shirt.  I am stuck.  I can either tear my shirt or hope someone will disengage me. As I dangle, weighing my options, I think how much I love these unique survival aides.

As a guide unhooks my hapless t-shirt, he explains, ‘This is called a ‘Wait-a-While’ plant.  It's a creeping plant with barbs that latch on to other plants or innocent tourists. If you get hooked, you’re going to wait a while to get free.”  Ha ha.  This plant is also called the Lawyer Vine (that doesn’t seem very nice, does it?).

Finally free, I return to the cable car and continue to Kuranda.

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