Going up down under
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Cairns is a tourist town, think Panama City, Florida, with dive and tour booking shops instead of water slides and go-carts. The dive shops obviously are all about the Great Barrier Reef. The tour shops are about Kuranda, Cape Tribulation and Daintree. The area is still mostly in a natural state when you get outside of town so the focus is about ecology and the aboriginal culture.
We opted for the Kuranda Scenic Train to take us into the mountains where the village of Kuranda is located at 1100’ above sea level and return via the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway that brought us back to the beach.
Kuranda was a stop on the Range Railway that stretched from Cairns to Granite Creek. The railway was built between 1887 and 1893 and done completely by hand. The trip that we did today took approximately 1.5 hours and traversed through the Barron Gorge as well as 15 hand dug tunnels. This is a truly scenic trip with views of the costal plains and Coral Sea as well as the Barron River Gorge and Barron Gorge Hydro Electric Power Station. We were also treated to views of Stoney Creek Falls, a waterfall just meters from the tracks as well as the occasional sighting of poinsettia and mango trees. The poinsettias, both red and white were blooming and stood out amid the green rainforest background.
We arrived at the Kuranda station to find a tourist mountain Mecca. (Remember what I said about Panama City.) Holly and I decided we would take in Butterfly World, the largest butterfly aviary in Australia, where we tried for about an hour to get GOOD pictures of the little winged demons. If you have never tried to photograph a butterfly you would be amazed at how little time they spend sitting still in perfect pose. Oh there are one or two varieties that will just spread their wings at the drop of a lens cap but the frustration level with the other 100 or so varieties more than make up for it. Between us we shot about 60-70 pictures. Between us we have about 4 that are worth showing. Enough said about that. The other attractions on the Kuranda circuit were Bird World, Venom Zoo, Koala Gardens, Crocodile Adventures and the ever popular Tjapkuai Aboriginal Culture Park. Starting at US$10 per head, per attraction we declined further exploration into this current day Barnum world.
We had a great hamburger at a small sidewalk café and then headed for the Skyrail. The Skyrail is a 7.5 km aerial tram that passes over the world’s oldest surviving continuous rain forest. The highest point is 1788 feet which it reaches as it crosses Red Peak. The tram is in two sections and you transfer to a second gondola at a midway point in order to complete the entire journey. The views of both the rain forest and the costal plains are spectacular. The rain forest is dense from floor to canopy offering only occasional views into its foliage. When we crossed the last ridge line, the rain forest seemed to drop away and the coastal plains filled the gondola. The low hanging dark clouds gave the scene a dramatic overtone that made us want to find a sturdy roof and a fireplace.
Our Gondola docked shortly after the steep descent from the ridge. We disembarked and went looking for our bus back to town. Twenty minutes after boarding, we were on the streets of Cairns and headed to our hotel. With nothing planned except for laundry and this log, we look forward to a quiet restful night.
Tomorrow we head for Hobart, Tasmania, the second leg of our journey and a visit to winter.
Cairns is a tourist town, think Panama City, Florida, with dive and tour booking shops instead of water slides and go-carts. The dive shops obviously are all about the Great Barrier Reef. The tour shops are about Kuranda, Cape Tribulation and Daintree. The area is still mostly in a natural state when you get outside of town so the focus is about ecology and the aboriginal culture.
We opted for the Kuranda Scenic Train to take us into the mountains where the village of Kuranda is located at 1100’ above sea level and return via the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway that brought us back to the beach.
Kuranda was a stop on the Range Railway that stretched from Cairns to Granite Creek. The railway was built between 1887 and 1893 and done completely by hand. The trip that we did today took approximately 1.5 hours and traversed through the Barron Gorge as well as 15 hand dug tunnels. This is a truly scenic trip with views of the costal plains and Coral Sea as well as the Barron River Gorge and Barron Gorge Hydro Electric Power Station. We were also treated to views of Stoney Creek Falls, a waterfall just meters from the tracks as well as the occasional sighting of poinsettia and mango trees. The poinsettias, both red and white were blooming and stood out amid the green rainforest background.
We arrived at the Kuranda station to find a tourist mountain Mecca. (Remember what I said about Panama City.) Holly and I decided we would take in Butterfly World, the largest butterfly aviary in Australia, where we tried for about an hour to get GOOD pictures of the little winged demons. If you have never tried to photograph a butterfly you would be amazed at how little time they spend sitting still in perfect pose. Oh there are one or two varieties that will just spread their wings at the drop of a lens cap but the frustration level with the other 100 or so varieties more than make up for it. Between us we shot about 60-70 pictures. Between us we have about 4 that are worth showing. Enough said about that. The other attractions on the Kuranda circuit were Bird World, Venom Zoo, Koala Gardens, Crocodile Adventures and the ever popular Tjapkuai Aboriginal Culture Park. Starting at US$10 per head, per attraction we declined further exploration into this current day Barnum world.
We had a great hamburger at a small sidewalk café and then headed for the Skyrail. The Skyrail is a 7.5 km aerial tram that passes over the world’s oldest surviving continuous rain forest. The highest point is 1788 feet which it reaches as it crosses Red Peak. The tram is in two sections and you transfer to a second gondola at a midway point in order to complete the entire journey. The views of both the rain forest and the costal plains are spectacular. The rain forest is dense from floor to canopy offering only occasional views into its foliage. When we crossed the last ridge line, the rain forest seemed to drop away and the coastal plains filled the gondola. The low hanging dark clouds gave the scene a dramatic overtone that made us want to find a sturdy roof and a fireplace.
Our Gondola docked shortly after the steep descent from the ridge. We disembarked and went looking for our bus back to town. Twenty minutes after boarding, we were on the streets of Cairns and headed to our hotel. With nothing planned except for laundry and this log, we look forward to a quiet restful night.
Tomorrow we head for Hobart, Tasmania, the second leg of our journey and a visit to winter.
posted by Gary and Holly Davis @ 2:47 AM
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