Bartle Frere

Mount Bartle Frere is the highest mountain in Queensland at an elevation of 1, 611 metres (5, 285 ft).

Mount Bartle Frere is the highest mountain in Queensland at an elevation of 1,611 metres (5,285 ft). The mountain was named after Sir Henry Bartle Frere, a British colonial administrator and then president of the Royal Geographical Society by George Elphinstone Dalrymple in 1873. Bartle Frere was British Governor of Cape Colony at the outset of the Anglo-Zulu War.

It is located 51 kilometres (32 mi) south of Cairns in the Wooroonooran National Park southwest of the town of Babinda on the eastern edge of the Atherton Tablelands. Mount Bartle Frere is part of the Bellenden Ker Range and the watershed of Russell River.

The foothill to summit is entirely covered by rainforest, ranging from typical tropical rainforest in the lowlands to low cloud forest at the cooler summit, where temperatures are up to 10 °C (18 °F) lower than on the coast. Despite the treacherous climb, reaching the top offers an expansive view of the surrounding area.

The first European to scale the mountain was Christie Palmerston in 1886. He blazed a tree at the summit "'P' October 26,'86.". Its immediate neighbour Mount Bellenden Ker is the second highest mountain in Queensland at 1593 metres.

On 21 April 1942 an American Air Corps B-25 Mitchell medium-range bomber (41-12455), from the 3rd Bomb Group, 90th Bomb Squadron, crashed on the mountain with the loss of all seven crew members. This particular aircraft had only recently returned from the Royce Raid against Japanese forces in the Philippines.