Day Out in Kuranda

Cairns is nestled in a very narrow flat area by the sea, surrounded by the foothills of the Great Dividing Range. One of the famous tourist attractions is a day out at the village of Kuranda, nestled in rain forest 334 metres above sea level. Like many other visitors we chose to go up on the scenic railway and return on the 'skyrail', or cableway. Although the end point of each mode of transport is next to each other in Kuranda, the start points in Cairns are some distance apart. We had been advised to park at the bottom terminus of the Skyrail, and book a bus to take us from there to the station to catch the scenic railway, which meant that when we were finished for the day we could return to our car and leave immediately, rather than have to wait for a bus transfer back to the station if we had left our car there originally. This worked really well, except that the day before we were booked to go we had a phone call at 8:25 asking why we weren't at the pickup point. That was soon sorted out, and on the actual day the transfer worked smoothly.

The rail journey certainly lived up to its name, and was very scenic. At first we were given sweeping views over the fertile flat strip of land and out to sea, with the Cairns suburbs dotted picturesquely about, then as we climbed higher into the ranges we travelled high above deep gorges. The railway was constructed in the 1880's using shovels and pick axes, a fantastic achievement given the difficult terrain. The 15 tunnels alone extracted a huge toll not just in money and sweat, but also in lives, with 23 confirmed deaths during the building. It took nearly 2 hours to complete the around 20km journey, with one stop at a waterfall lookout. It certainly lived up to its billing as one of the great scenic rail journeys.

The return journey by cable car provided a different perspective. Instead of hugging the side of the gorge we sailed majestically above it, and the straight line route reduced the distance to around 7 km. The trip takes about 45 minutes to complete, with 2 lookout stops enroute adding another half hour. We glided regally above the tree tops with magnificent 360 degree views, with the final descent back to sea level being heart stoppingly steep.

In between, we spent about 4 hours at Kuranda. Although the town was originally settled in the 1800s, a 'hippy invasion' in the 1960s set the tone for the town's current incarnation. Like many other towns dependent on the tourist dollar it is a mixture of hippy markets (hemp and tie-dye clothing, organic hand cream, crystals), Australiana (t-shirts, leather hats, pictures of Uluru and kangaroos) and generic tat (beaded jewellery, hand made soap, honey products). Plus huge numbers of ice cream stalls, coffee shops and cafes. The first thing we did was buy an ice cream, then we set off up the main street. We soon came across a 'candy store' making 'rock candy'. This particular rock was to have a Rudolph the Reindeer picture in the middle, and we spent almost half an hour watching the fascinating process of hand making the various colours of candy, pulling out some of it to add air and lighten it, then assembling a huge log of strips of different colours. This was then rolled and pulled out into tiny thin logs which when cut revealed a surprisingly good picture of the iconic reindeer. The samples handed around were still warm from the manufacture but surprisingly crunchy and very sugary-sweet.

Our next stop was a butterfly sanctuary, where we attended a free talk explaining the various types of butterflies there and their life cycles. It included a look at the 'nursery' where the butterfly eggs are collected and the caterpillars nurtured before they spin a cocoon to emerge later as beautiful winged creatures which are then released back into the large aviary-like enclosure. Each butterfly species likes to lay its eggs on a particular tree or tree part, and the butterfly handlers trick them by ensuring that there are none of these trees actually growing in the enclosure. Instead a few branches of each special tree is placed inside, and the butterflies lay their eggs on these. The branches are changed every 90 minutes and the eggs collected in a sterilised environment. They now have an 80% success rate of egg to adult, compared to 1% in the wild. We wandered through the enclosure with thousands of butterflies fluttering around, chasing each other in displays of aerial acrobatics and frequently mistaking clothing and other objects for flowers to land on. It was lovely.

Our time in Kuranda was completed by a quick browse through a few of the market stalls, a pleasant lunch in an outdoor cafe watching the other tourists go by and finally a walk through some of the lush rainforest and along the banks of the Barron River. It was a lovely day and we thoroughly enjoyed the time in Kuranda as well as the spectacular journeys there and back.