Australia's Epic Stretch Of Mountains And Rare Wildlife Is One Of Earth's Longest Cordilleras

Imagine a 2,300-mile stretch of mountains all within one country. That's Australia's Great Dividing Range, an awe-inspiring series of mountain ranges — a cordillera — that runs from Dauan Island in the Torres Strait south down the Australian mainland to Victoria. The Great Dividing Range encompasses some of the world's most diverse landscapes and rarest wildlife across Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria.

This epic cordillera spans many of Australia's diverse ecosystems. From the tropical Cape York Peninsula to the snowy mountain ranges in the south (Yes, really!), the Great Dividing Range offers visitors a chance to hike through lush jungle and ski down powder-covered peaks. Much of the Range is thickly forested, which makes it the perfect home for Australia's rare wildlife, including platypuses, echidnas, and tree kangaroos. The Great Dividing Range is enormous, so how do you choose which part to enjoy on your next vacation? Consider this your brief introduction to things to do.

Seeing a kangaroo and a koala are usually at the top of most people's bucket lists when they visit Australia. The good news for visitors is that kangaroos are everywhere, from the beaches to the sparsely populated Outback to the vineyards. Drive even a short distance along the Great Dividing Range, and you will see a roo.

But more interestingly, you might be able to spot a tree kangaroo! They live in Australia's oldest rainforest, the Daintree, one of our hidden gem destinations in Australia. They're pretty hard to spot, so you might want to head to Wildlife Habitat Port Douglas for a guaranteed sighting. The Daintree offers a bonanza of wildlife, including possums, cassowaries, and goannas, too.

Koalas aren't quite as abundant as kangaroos, but Queensland delivers again. The Great Diving Range passes by Brisbane, and there, you can visit the Brisbane Koala Bushlands to see these adorable marsupials in their natural habitat. In Victoria, the East Gippsland forests are a wildlife hotspot, home to koalas, wombats, dingoes, platypuses, and echidnas.

The Great Dividing Range is full of wonderful places to hike! If you're near Brisbane in Queensland, head to Lamington National Park, where you'll find around 80 miles of tracks leading through dense foliage and up to mountain lookouts with picturesque views across the Range. Craggy peaks dominate nearby Mount Barney National Park, but to scale the mountains there, you'll need to be a very experienced hiker. 

To enjoy the Great Dividing Range in New South Wales, make a beeline for the Blue Mountains National Park, the perfect day trip for Sydney vacationers. The park is only around an hour from the city, but it's a wild world away. The most famous site in the park is the Three Sisters, a jaw-dropping rock formation that's the subject of many Aboriginal stories.

While forests dominate much of the Range, snowcapped mountains appear in the south. In the Australian Alps, you'll find Mount Kosciuszko, a majestic peak you need to see in your lifetime. On the New South Wales/Victoria border, Kosciuszko is Australia's highest peak, at over 7,000 feet. The mountains there see snow for five to six months per year (part of the Australian Alps is called the Snowy Mountains!) and you can ski there in the winter. Thredbo is one of the most popular resorts in the country, and it's open for skiing from June to October.