Green, Green, Green: Kuranda/Cairns Day 3

We were picked up from our hotel today at 7:30 am for a ride out to Freshwater, where we were planning to catch the Kuranda Scenic Railway into the rainforest to the village of Kuranda. We got to the station too early for once and had time to eat breakfast (best sausage roll so far for me, croissant for Gretchen) and to check out the small museum on the history of the railway…that is, we were able to check it out once the literally 100 German tourists cleared out of it. The KSR was built in 1891 by Australian pioneer types to reach the gold rush town of Kuranda from coastal Cairns and is still in use today.

We got on the 8:30 train to Kuranda; there were assigned seats and cars again, but the train was far from full, so everyone spread out. It was an old-style rail car with red leather bench seats and wooden floors. As we chugged along through the rainforest, we went gradually uphill. The train went through 15 tunnels, all of which had been dug by the workers in 1891 using only picks and shovels. Pretty amazing when you figure the longest one is over 1/3 mile long.

We had lots of time with the koalas because a rainstorm came through just as we were standing there.

The train passed tons of supergreenery and also a few rivers and waterfalls. At the Barron River Gorge, the train stopped for a few minutes to let us out to photograph the big waterfall there. We pulled into Kuranda around 9:40am and walked up the hill to the town, which is just one of the many places we’ve visited that I say is nice to spend a day in, but I would rather die than live there. There are about 10 streets in the whole town and 8 of those are full of tourist-trap shops.

We elected to visit the Kuranda Koala Gardens, which had freshwater crocodiles (or “freshies” as they call them here…guess what the salt-water crocs are called), wallabies, wombats, assorted reptiles including the long-necked turtle, and of course the eponymous koalas. They are certainly adorable, and for an extra $15 we could have hugged one, but seriously? That is a little silly if you ask me. We had lots of time with the koalas because a rainstorm came through just as we were standing there. No surprise – it is a rainforest, after all.

After the small zoo, we wandered around the markets of Kuranda, and Gretchen got a few knickknacks. We stopped at the Rainforest Café and had lunch…our first salad of the trip! It is almost impossible to find a meal here that is not either all meat or served in pie form. I don’t know if I have mentioned it, but the NZers and Australians both love their meat pies. They really do prefer their food in pie form. I have seen pies in almost every place we have stopped. While we were walking back to the station, we saw a sandwich board advertising a “Guinness Pie.” Lord knows what that is, but I had to make note of it. After our salad, we stopped for a scoop of gelato, which was scrumptious. We had more or less exhausted the entertainment in Kuranda by noon, so we walked back to the Skyrail terminal to head back to Cairns.

We took the Skyrail back down the mountain. The Skyrail is gondolas suspended as much as 120 feet in the air, high above the rainforest canopy. It was an amazing experience, but I didn’t particularly care for the moments when we went over a tower because the whole car would shake. We got off the gondola at Red Leaf station, where we took a guided tour through the rainforest on an elevated boardwalk. The tour took about 20 minutes, and after that we got on another gondola to go back toward Cairns. On the way down the mountain, we saw some guys waterskiing in a man-made lake. We managed to get onto a 2:00 shuttle to Cairns (an hour earlier than scheduled) and got dropped off in the city center to do some exploring.

This was the only day we had in Cairns with good weather; there’s a cyclone just north of Australia that is messing with the weather down here and making lots of rain. In any case, we had a few hours of sun and we took advantage of it. Cairns has a terrific public pool right by the ocean, which we didn’t go in because we didn’t have our swimming suits on, but we did enjoy watching everyone else use it. We walked around the streets of Cairns a little more, stopping at shops and peeking in the casino, and then caught a bus back to our hotel. We went for a quick dip in the pool, then came up to our room to rest up. We have an incredibly early flight to Sydney tomorrow (taking off at 5:00am), so we decided on dinner at the hotel restaurant and an early night. Gretchen got veal parmagiana and I got lasagna, and they both came with (wait for it) fried potatoes. People, you all know I am a lover of the potato. I am Pennsylvania Dutch, for crap's sake. But even my mom didn't serve potatoes with lasagna! Time to rest so we will be up in time for Sydney tomorrow! Finally!!!