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Chugging past cane fields on the fringes of Cairns, I let Buda-dji, the carpet snake, lead the way. Aboriginal legends tell how he carved out the Barron River Gorge, bartering nautilus shells for eel traps. But ambushed, chopped and scattered, just a few subtle landmarks record his passing. With a nod to indigenous lore the Kuranda Scenic Railway's locomotive now sports his brilliant colours, winding through jungly hills yet always veering back up the Barron towards Kuranda.

This is among the finest routes into the Atherton Tablelands, a lush and lofty enclave of tropical Queensland where the air is cooler and the grass quite literally greener. First gold, then tin coaxed hardy settlers and the railway was begun in 1886 to help relieve terrible conditions. It is something of an engineering feat, with sections built on 45º slopes, 15 tunnels and Stoney Creek Bridge straddling falls curtained with water in the Wet.

Kuranda, the Tablelands' gateway, is known for its craft markets and alternative culture, though some locals regret encroaching commerciality. Many visitors simply nip up for the day, returning to Cairns on Skyrail, a spectacular gondola cableway which skims the rainforest and, at 7½km, is the world's longest. I pressed on to the Tableland's heart, my car radio tuned to a country station where men sang plaintively of heartbreak and drought, floods and hardship.

Dry savannah gave way to rolling hills and neat fields, England on a perfect summer's day. Later at Iskanda Farmstay near Malanda I realised how deceptive is this landscape. Tony Lloyd was showing me his land and his cattle; creeks nurtured tree ferns and tulip oaks, while fields were bordered by lawyer canes and satinash. These were tantalising remnants of rainforest which cloaked the Tablelands until the early 1900s. As tin dwindled, settlers saw a future in farming and timber. With the 1988 listing of Queensland's wet tropics as a World Heritage Site, now only beef and dairy thrive.

At Malanda Falls' patch of protected forest I met Ernie Raymont, an Aboriginal ranger, to hear how his Ngadjonji people once lived off the land. As we strolled between sun-dappled creepers and buttresses, carefully avoiding the heart-shaped leaves of the so-called 'stinging tree', he explained some of their intimate knowledge. Certain nuts, for instance, would be leeched of their toxins with ginger leaf and a gentle creek. Sap from the milky pine stunned fish. One chose witchetty grubs diligently for their flavour depended on the host tree, lemon aspen being especially tasty. Oddly they never touched fungii.

Did he eat much bush tucker today? "We all gotta sweet tooth now," he confessed and, for that matter, many young Aborigines no longer know the old ways. You can see examples of their crafts at the Falls Visitor Centre – shields made from fig tree buttresses, eeltraps from woven lawyer cane – and learn how the indigenes were crudely displaced.

The Tablelands' gastronomic and touristic pivot is Yungaburra, an 1890s village with nearly thirty buildings listed by the National Trust. Settlements like this were built on 'pockets' of thin forest or cleared land, and Yungaburra was originally called Allumbah Pocket after the Aboriginal name for its magnificent red cedars. You could stroll its tidy sreets – weatherboard houses and a blaze of mauve and violet jacaranda trees – in half an hour but this is such a friendly easy-going place why put the worry into hurry.

So I learned that Eden House, built in 1912 by a timber merchant and now a gourmet restaurant, is the area's oldest remaining homestead. You can sip capuccino in the erstwhile Bank of New South Wales – garden included – and devour kangaroo pie with black bean sauce, pumpkin and wattle seed mash at the Burra Inn. St Mark's Anglican Church resembles a dainty Wendy house with gothic windows while Catholic St Patrick's transepts make it larger, more eager.

The village's most venerable building, virtually an institution, is the modest Lake Eacham Hotel. Built in 1910, with 1920s additions, its deep panelled dining hall recalls an era when country hotels were community landmarks. I regarded its swing doors, their glass etched with a belt design and the name 'Williams', the family who pioneered Yungaburra's development.

"Old Maud Williams ran this place for 61 years" announced Marie Livingstone, its current salt-of-the-earth proprietor. "And those doors" she continued "haven't been locked since 1910". With a wry smile she led me up to what was teasingly called the 'Heseltine Room', mine tonight. The Tory lion had come for the birds and his formal portrait hangs among numerous sepia prints of old Tablelands' life.

Of Australia's approximately 760 bird species, just over 300 are found in the Tablelands. One of the best viewing points is the Mareeba Wetlands Reserve, about 50km north of Yungaburra towards Cairns. Favoured by brolgas, sarus cranes and black-necked storks, its lagoons were created from excess irrigation water. You can cross the largest by electric boat, or walk several trails deep into savannah woodland dotted with termite mounds.

Yet birds also thrive on the village's doorstep. Two nearby volcanic lakes, Eacham and Barrine, together form Crater Lakes National Park. It is bounded by small thick forests with some massive trees including a pair of 50m-tall, thousand-year-old kauri pines. Whistling bowerbirds and whip-cracking riflebirds complement parrots and honeyeaters. Rarest of all is the cassowary but this is more beast than bird. At nearly two metres tall and females averaging 47kg, an unlikely encounter with one of these requires caution. They can kick and claw, and the official advice when faced with a grumpy speciman is to back away slowly keeping a bag in front of you....or preferably a tree!

There are no such perils, not even a rogue platypus, lurking in Lake Eacham. I swam its cool, placid waters as do the locals and headed back to Rose Gums, a hilltop cluster of A-frame chalets with unsullied views across the canopy and Mt Bartle Frere. It is Queensland's highest peak and among Australia's wettest spots – 10,000mm plus in a good year. Now, before the Wet, the jungle's melodious hums, whirrs and clicks rather than pounding rain lulled me into deep contented slumber.

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