Johnstone Area

This stretch of the Tablelands runs on rainforest and water, waterfalls and swimming holes scattered through green country that barely thins out between towns. Malanda Falls Conservation Park offers an easy swim, platypus sometimes surfacing in the same pool as visitors. Moresby Range National Park holds genuinely excellent birdwatching, trails winding through habitat that changes with every few hundred metres of elevation. Innisfail anchors the coast side of the shire, its streets rebuilt in striking Art Deco style after a cyclone levelled the original town in 1918. Whatever draws you here, the green rarely lets up for long.