Fitzroy Island

This ruggedly picturesque, heavily forested island is 94% national park, with vegetation ranging from rain forest to heath, and an extensive fringing coral reef. Only 6 km (4 mi)—less than an hour's cruise—from Cairns, the 988-acre island, once connected to the mainland, was a hunting, gathering, and ceremonial ground for the Gungandji people, who called it Kobaburra before Cook re-named it in 1770. Today it's popular with day-trippers and houses a newly-built resort and a water-sports hut. From June to September, migrating manta rays and humpback whales pass right by the island.