Australian Rainforest Plants

Latin America boomer's paradise

There were five baby boomers in a group my wife Heather and I passed midway through the climb as they rested, waiting for one of them, Chuck, an overweight American, to catch his breath.

As they approached the Sun Gate, Chuck was obviously feeling the revenge of the Incas; his sweaty face had paled, his shirt was soaked and Heather thought he was heading for a heart attack. Ten minutes later he was happily recovered, taking photos of the ruins below, celebrating the achievement of his climb.

The boomers will affect global tourism in two ways.

First, operators will have to plan for ageing yet active tourists such as Chuck who want to be part of the experience, keen to try something different but with legal drugs this time. Sedentary tourism, watching the sites go by from a bus, is not an option for the boomers.

Second, boomers are part of the tourism problem. We are loving some of the great wonders of the world to death. There are too many of us and we threaten the future of sensitive eco-cultures such as the Great Barrier Reef, Machu Picchu and the Galapagos Islands. This is where Australia has great expertise and experience to partner with Latin America.

The answer lies in limiting numbers to environmentally sensitive destinations and creating tourism experiences that allow the boomers to satisfy their egos, spend their dollars and create opportunities for local populations.

The 55-million-year-old Amazon rainforest has the largest number of living animals and plants on earth, including one in five of the world's birds. It is so large that covers nine nations: Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, where we are travelling, Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana.

The Amazon has more than its fair share of threats to the survival of human travellers. On land there are jaguars, cougars, black caimans, anacondas, rabies-spreading vampire bats and the ever-present threat of malaria, dengue and yellow fever. Jump in the water and a visitor will be fending off poison-dart frogs, piranha and 2m electric eels.

None of these dangers need stop Chuck and other baby boomers from experiencing this environmental wonder.

Add the Iguazu Falls, Easter Island and Patagonia, and this is a continent worth dying in; but, as the Amazon experience has shown, it is a continent struggling with the polemic of economic development and environmental protection.

AUSTRALIA has the opportunity to be a key Latin American partner in sustainable economic development. On April 29 the presidents of Peru, Chile, Colombia and Mexico signed a Pacific Alliance agreement to boost economic and trade links by integrating their four countries economically. President Felipe Calderon of Mexico estimates the trade could be worth up to $9 billion as a result of the agreement, which covers 200 million people.

Traveller's Tweet Up in Australia's Rainforest | Journey Jottings

I first took Michela to  Natural Bridge , which although only an hour and a half south of Brisbane in SE Queensland, is a particularly pretty little pocket of rainforest, with a stunning waterfall that cascades down into a cave through an overhead opening. I love Natural Bridge with its strangler fig trees and epiphytes (plants that use another plant as a host to grow off – ie they have no roots in the soil, they are an air plant) so will devote a fuller post to this spectacular spot in the coming weeks.

Just a few kilometres south of Natural Bridge we ascended the pass to cross the border into NSW, leaving Queensland behind. Once down in the Tweed Valley we turned west on the Murwillumbah – Kyogle Road to Wollumbin, Mt Warning. Mt Warning was named by Lieutenant Cook as he sailed up the east coast of Australia in 1770, and being the highest peak closest to the most easterly point of Australia (Byron Bay) it’s always the first spot to catch the sun’s morning rays each day.

The lower slopes are covered in stunning rainforest vegetation and the size of some of these beautiful rainforest trees is quite staggering, as can be seen in the first photo of Michela at the top of this post, where she’s illustrating the breadth of a rainforest tree trunk – which must have had a 3-metre diameter.

Australian rainforest plants, in the forest & in the garden

Australian rainforest plants

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