Whilst in Cairns we booked several day trips. The first of which was up to Kuranda, a village 25km northwest of Cairns surrounded by World Heritage Rainforest that you can visit by train, and then journey back down in a cable-car soaring over the treetops!
It meant an early start (6am, ouch!) to meet the bus which would take us to the train station. The Scenic Railway goes from the regular station in Cairns, but is a special colourful “rainforest train”. The journey took about 1.5-2hours climbing through the rainforest to get there, with some pretty spectacular views on the way. We also travelled over many bridges, through lots of tunnels and cuttings, and we able to get off the train at Barron Falls for a photo opportunity. This waterfall is located at a hydroelectric power dam, and whilst it is more impressive in the wet season it was still a pretty good view.
Then we headed over to some of the wildlife attractions- for such a small village, there is a surprising amount to do . We went to Birdworld, a large enclosure where birds are free to fly around near you, land on your head etc- mostly of the people who had paid for bird feed! There were some really colourful ones (lorikeets) and they were quite entertaining to watch, we even saw a Cassowary, a large flightless bird related to the ostrich and emu. These are now endangered species in Queensland so you’re unlikely to see one the wild, but if you do catch a glimpse they’re hard to miss with their rather strange looking blue heads with domes on top- very dinosaur-like!
We went over to the Koala Gardens after (we’d bought a combined ticket with Birdworld which offered us a discount), where they had crocodiles, reptiles, wombats, kangaroos and wallabies, as well as koalas- who were sleeping of course, haha.
After wandering round the markets we stopped for lunch at a little cafe, and had a toasted “Baron” foccacia, with chicken and avocado.
We then did the Jum Rum Creek Jungle and River walk, one of the jungle walks that start in the village centre. It was mostly along boardwalks so was relatively easy going and took about 45-50minutes, we finished up near the Skyrail, our transport for the journey back down from Kuranda.
The Skyrail is a series of cablecars that travel 7.5km over the rainforest incredibly high up (slightly scary!) but with the most amazing views. There is the option for two stops en-route at Red Peak and Barron Falls to get out and take photos, which we did. There are 3 separate lookouts overlooking Barron Falls and Barron Gorge, and at Red Peak a 175m boardwalk through the trees, palms and ferns. It was nice to get out and walk around the rainforest looking at the information boards and the beautiful scenery.
The cablecars travelled quite fast so even with stops the journey down was quicker than the train on the way there. Our booking included bus transport back to our accommodation which was good as the Skyrail station is a little way outside Cairns.
Beki x
