The Heritage of Trees

A Heritage of Trees – Queensland’s Wet Tropics by Paul Curtis.
Hardcover – 140 pages
 
If you haven’t yet recognised the name, Paul Curtis is a frequent writer of the ‘Trails and Destinations’ section of What’s On, and with his second-to-none knowledge and photography of the Far North Queensland’s most beautiful and hidden locations this book is a must have if you love exploring beautiful, inaccessible and remote locations from the comfort of your armchair. Befitting the coffee table or conference room.

In the mid 90s an international book arrived on the market titled “Meetings with Remarkable Trees”.

"Writer, Rupert Russell, and I were inspired and considered all the remarkable trees we had passed in our travels around north Queensland’s Wet Tropics and contemplated their individual stories of resilience and character. The Wet Tropics is nothing if not trees and all the lifeforms they support.
 
We travelled far and wide over 3 years visiting known examples and discovering many more. You could say people came out of the woodwork offering advice and information on individual examples of great specimens and in many cases known to very few people.
 
Three years of walking, climbing and crawling resulted in quite a library of spectacular examples of dwarves and giants from deep within the wilderness. However, other commitments and financial resources led to a hiatus until in 2018 photographer and publisher Steven Nowakowski re-lit our enthusiasm and offered his assistance and expertise in getting the project moving again. Trees were re-visited and more discovered.
 
Rupert’s wonderful text brings alive the story of encountering each tree and I hope our photographs capture the sometimes uncooperative subjects in all their moods and spectacle.
 
We are pleased to offer a long overdue book celebrating the nature of north Queensland’s Wet Tropics through the age-old inhabitants that have watched as indigenous Australians, explorers, loggers and bushwalkers passed beneath their limbs – the trees of north Queensland.
 
The cover features a wonderful old Turpentine I found in the Koombooloomba area that inspired me to ask my daughter to peer into its mysterious depths, perhaps in search of forest sprites or faeries.
 
Try as I may, I have never been able to find this tree again. It’s somewhere along the banks of the Tully River between the Tully Falls lookout and the dam wall.
 
If you can find it let me know. Hopefully it hasn’t been washed away". Paul Curtis.

Paul also has program where he takes people to learn photography in Nature within these rainforests and do forest bathing. He particularly is focused on people with terminal illnesses to connect to the healing of Nature and be immersed in all the forest can yield.