High up in the Canopy

We reached the railway station and picked up the pre-booked tickets for our Rainforest experience – a trip to Kuranda by train and return by Skyrail gondola. We waited on the platform in anticipation for the tell tale sounds of an approaching steam engine. A large light appeared in the distance. As it grew nearer I could see the brightly painted coachwork of a modern engine pulling a long string of old fashioned carriages. We chugged off at a sedate pace gradually climbing higher into the mountains and through the rainforest. The track passes through a series of tunnels as it winds its way upwards and there are beautiful views of Cairns and the coastline. From time to time you catch glimpses of waterfalls to the side of the track. The train briefly stops at Baron Gorge for a photo opportunity of the waterfall there which,

Baron River Falls

judging from photos, can be spectacular but due to the shortage of rainfall when we visited was just a trickle.

A finch??

Kuranda itself is very touristy but still rather charming and we stopped on our way to Birdworld for a cream tea. I confused the lady behind the counter by asking for just that. She looked puzzled and said “what's that”. “Um, what you've got on the board ......... Devon Cream Teas”. “Oh right. Well I've never heard them called Cream Teas before”. That sorted we sat down for our teas (at lunchtime)! Refuelled we made our way to Birdworld. Amazing. It was really wonderful – a huge open area of forest and ponds with tropical birds everywhere. When you looked up you could see a very fine mesh of netting enclosing the whole area but it was so lovely to see the birds, to all intents and purposes, flying freely.

Two Sun Conures? feeed off Ang's hand

Some of them were really tame and would take seed from your hand. Reluctantly we made our way back to catch Skyrail. Our return combination ticket meant that we needed to be at the Skyrail base terminal by 3 pm to take the last bus back to the railway station where we had parked.

The three degrees

The gondolas whisked us high above the treetops with 3 stops en route to our destination. We spotted the train in the distance below us as we gradually and silently glided through the sky back down to the coast. We finished the day by heading into Cairns to pick up the disk of photos Ol and Ang had taken with the underwater camera they had hired for our Barrier Reef trip. They were wonderful shots and well worth the effort they took in taking them.
We still hadn't used the complex pool but dipping our toes in on our return it seemed bitterly cold so Ol suggested we walk to the beach only a few hundred yards away. He bravely strode into the water which was also very cold so with just a brief paddle we gave up and popped back to start tea.

The following day we decided to return to Kuranda, this time by car. We headed for one of the wildlife parks. The object of the exercise being to have a cuddle with a Koala.

Mum & Joey

It turned out to be quite a small park and unfortunately we arrived at the same time as a large group of Japanese tourists. The kangaroos and wallabies all ran for cover to escape the barrage of cameras but we enjoyed seeing the Koalas and Ang and I proceeded to the 'Cuddle a Koala and have your picture taken' area. We were pleased to read, as we waited for the shots, that the Koalas are protected by law from being used more than a certain number of minutes in one day for photos.!

Sleeping off the Eucalyptus

Rick and I left Cairns for the start of our journey back home and a day in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, before our long flight to Heathrow the next day. We packed up and left Yorkeys Knob but not before a daylight trip down the Marina. On the two occasions that we had been there before it had been to eat at the Yacht Club there and I thought it would be nice to see what it all looked like in daylight. We parked up and strode down to the harbour wall. Two huge signs warning 'Danger Salt Water Crocodiles' were clearly visible as we approached the beach to the side of the harbour wall. It suddenly became clear why there had been no-one on the beach when we went for our short paddle a couple of days previously!! We hadn't seen any signs in the section that we had gone on. With a nervous laugh we drove past our beach and on to Cairns, dropped Ol and Ang off at their hostel and said our sad farewells. Our flight was on time and we arrived in Sydney in good time to pick up our hire car and drive back to the Russell. Our short time there at the beginning of the holiday meant that we managed to find our way there with only one wrong turning!

written by

rickandsuejohnson on October 29, 2007 from Cairns, Australia

from the travel blog: From the Shire to Middle Earth and back

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