Trip to and from Kuranda

Today arrived after a considerable amount of rain during the night. I had suspected that we may have another wet day but it turned into a dry but overcast day.

At around 0830, I set off for Skyrail Cairns which was only about 10 minutes from the Caravan Park. I had booked a trip to go up on the Skyrail cable car system and return on the Kuranda Scenic Railway.

After arriving at the Skyrail terminal and parking for the day, I made my way to the check in counter. As I had paid for the trip on the Internet, all I was required to produce was a booking number. Then I had a muggacino in the cafe while waiting to hop into one of the cable cars.

What an absolutely magnificent view as it took me up to the first stop over point, Red Peak. There I joined in with a group that the ranger, an aboriginal named Milton, was explaining the various trees, shrubs and other plants. All the while he was explaining what his ancestors had used some of them for. Very interesting and he was quite humorous as well.

Then I hopped into another cable car to go on to the next station, Barron Falls. Here there was no ranger but a well signed walking track. The highlight here was the Barron Falls that were visible. Incredible and a fair bit of water going over the, There is a small dam above that diverts water to a twin turbine power station much lower down in the gorge.

Then onto the cable car again for the final segment into Kuranda. The whole trip was really spectacular seemingly floating over the rainforest below. It was possible to see and identify plants, trees and shrubs especially as the guide was quite descriptive. Also, it was possible to see numerous butterflies below along with various birds and in particular, sulphur crested cockatoos. These birds are just as destructive here as they are elsewhere. The ranger, Milton, told us they cleaned out all the Kauri pine nuts out earlier in the year after some time without any nuts due to the dry times they have had.

After a trip of almost 2 hours, I reached Kuranda. I disembarked and set out on foot to walk around the markets that the village is known for. There were a lot of people wandering around. Among them I met another couple of Kimberley Karavan owners from Adelaide, Phil and Pam. They were interested in how the KK Owners Group (KKOG) weekend had gone.

There is so much to see and look at with Art Galleries of all imaginable types, clothing, jewellery and food not to mention coffee. The clothing and jewellery ranged from really inexpensive quality to first class products. There were a lot of Opals for sale. I noted a lot of the stalls and shops had Japanese writing on them and the Japanese were in quite large numbers wandering around. Some of the lesser quality clothing and jewellery reminded me of a recent visit to the infamous Nimbin however there was not the unusual aroma that one associates with Nimbin. Similarly, the people around were not like the ones you might see around Nimbin and Byron Bay. 

As my back was really causing some grief, I decided I really needed to have a massage. I had noticed a young Asian couple doing it so I felt I should chance it. I did not realise how sore my back was until he worked on it. He remarked how tight I was. He used some acupressure and some special Ginseng Gold patches. It was not particularly inexpensive but so far I have had some relief. May it stay that way for a while but I suspect I will need more of the same.

After the massage treatment, I had a nice chicken burger and another cappuccino. It was nice to just sit and relax for a while. So I spent about an hour relaxing before it was time to stroll to the Kuranda Scenic Railway station. It is very much an authentic station with 2 platforms and real engines to tow the train.

I had chosen to go Gold Class which meant I had a really nice individual seat in a very luxurious carriage along with about 15 other people. Before we even moved, IC the attendant brought out refresh towels for everyone. Soon after he brought us all a packet of macadamia nuts. While delivering the nuts he asked everyone what they might like to drink. The range was from juice to champagne to beer. Then the nibbles came out which included the choice of several different local cheeses, dried tomato, olives, and dried fruits and so on.

We had started to move by now and as we progressed we were told of the history of the railway especially the building of it in the late 1890s. It has tunnels and bridges which were built without the aid of the machines of today.

Slowly we descended the line stopping at Barron Gorge to view the falls from a different angle to the cable car. As we travelled further, we could see the amazing trestle type bridge built all those years ago. The curves were amazing with several having a radius of only 80 metres. We passed by Stoney Creek falls and crossed it on the trestle bridge.

Quite soon we were down and at Freshwater Station where I alighted and hopped onto the supplied bus to return a lot of us to the Skyrail Terminal where our vehicles were parked.

So that ended a most interesting and very scenic as well as spectacular day. That trip is one I would recommend to anyone visiting the Cairns area.