Barron River

Experience white-water rafting in Barron Gorge National Park, known for its rugged rainforest mountains, steep ravines, and the falls carved out over thousands of years by the Barron River. Enjoy optional pickup from Cairns or Port Douglas before heading to the national park. Meet your guide at Lake Placid, and get ready for your river rafting tour on the river. Enjoy the area’s scenic beauty and a combination of calm water and a series of white-water rapids as well. Spend two hours navigating rapids up to grade three. No experience is necessary, making this a good choice for beginning rafters. There is also plenty of excitement for the more experienced. Please note: $30 per person River Levy payable on the day of travel

Prepare for adventure and action on this guided white water rafting tour on the Barron River. Receive all rafting training and equipment needed before venturing into the water to experience grade 2 and 3 rapids. The Barron River is located only 20 minutes from Cairns and offers a great introduction to white water rafting. You’ll get to experience up to 2 hours of rafting with a combination of exciting rapids and calm water paddling. Begin with pickup from your accommodation or self-driving to the starting point at Lake Placid. Once here, meet your river guide and fellow paddlers and get fitted with your life jacket, helmet, and rafting shoes, if you choose to rent a pair.  Follow a short track with your group down to the river where you will board your raft and receive a comprehensive safety briefing and paddling instructions from your guide. You will have the chance to practice in the flat water before it's time to hit the white water. The first couple of rapids you raft through are small and easy, giving you plenty of time to get a feel for how the raft moves through the water before it's time to navigate the bigger, more exciting rapids, including the Rooster Tail. The combination of grade 2 and 3 rapids will ensure you have a thrilling trip rafting down the Barron. At the bottom section of the river, enjoy a flat paddle where you'll have time to admire the stunning scenery and learn about the surrounding rainforest and native wildlife. After arriving at the take-out point, change into your dry clothes. On the journey back to your hotel, find the action photos available for preview to purchase. Please note: $30pp River Levy is payble on the day of travel.

Take to the skies on a scenic helicopter flight over the Great Barrier Reef and the oldest continually surviving tropical rainforest on Earth. Enjoy a birds-eye view of the reef, the coast, and the rainforest as you fly over the Barron Gorge National Park, the Barron River, and the village of Kuranda. Begin your flight over the Great Barrier Reef and take in the stunning views of the reef from above. Cross back over the coast near Double Island and the resort township of Palm Cove before ascending the coastal rainforest-clad mountains into the heart of the Barron Gorge National Park. As you emerge from the canopy below, see the Barron River and the quaint rainforest village of Kuranda. Keep an eye out for the tracks of the historical Kuranda Scenic Rail and the gondolas of the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway. From the top of the gorge, descend over the 250m rock face of the mighty Barron Falls, which, while impressive year-round, provides an awe-inspiring photo opportunity after heavy green-season rain (Dec-Apr). Follow the Barron River for the next 5km as it snakes its way back down the gorge towards the ocean, providing hydroelectricity to the city of Cairns and thrills for rafters riding on its rapids.

Our 20-minute Cairns scenic flight provides a ‘taste’ of this incredible World Heritage-listed natural region. Cairns sits on a floodplain to the south of the mouth of the mighty Barron River. The Barron's headwaters start in the Mount Hypipamee National Park at an elevation of 3,900 ft. The river flows 65 kilometres across fertile volcanic soils of the Atherton Tablelands and then journeys through the quaint village of Kuranda before cascading down the 850 ft high Barron Falls and moving across the Cairns floodplains out into the Coral Sea. The Barron Gorge is an impressive natural feature carved out of the Great Dividing Range and the Falls at its head are intimidating to behold when in full flight during the tropical wet season. Your Cairns scenic flight tracks up through the Barron Gorge up to and over the Barron Falls, passing the over the world-famous Skyrail Rainforest Cableway where it spans the river and around the village of Kuranda before turning for the coast and descending over the lush eastern slopes of the Great Dividing Range on the return leg of your scenic helicopter flight with panoramic views over Cairns city and out to the Reef.