Day 168 - Wednesday 14 June - On the scenic railway to Kuranda

Day 168

Wednesday

14 June 2017 –

Cairns – Kuranda

Alarms were set for today, just as well as I would have quite happily slept past the bell time of 7am. We got put and busy preparing for our day and we were out of the park at 8.10am joining the morning commute as we made our way to the Freshwater train station where we were to catch the scenic railway to Kuranda.

The place was fairly packed when we arrived. We collected our prepaid tickets, with allocated seating and waited next to the platform for the train to arrive at 8.50am.

It pulled in on time and we clambered aboard, sitting in a row of four, facing another four. We weren’t by the window as there was an aisle running the left side of the carriage where we were seated. The two opposite us were offered seats in another carriage, so we were left with six of us in our block.

The train began its journey following behind many housing estates. A running commentary was piped over the speakers pointing out things of significance including the suburb of Redlynch, named after a red headed Irish foreman of the railway construction called Lynch and Jungara the site of the largest military hospital in the southern hemisphere in WWII.

The train then tackled the 180 degree turn at horseshoe bend, where if you were lucky you would be able to look out the window and see the train as it bent around the track. I was quite annoyed that seating wasn’t explained to us when we bought tickets, as I would have insisted on the window seat to take advantage of the view of photo opportunities. As it was I made it clear to the other couples that I would be passing them at any opportunity and taking the photos I wanted to take.

We began our slow, steep ascent of the mountain passing through the first of 15 tunnels that were carved with pick axe and shovel. It was then on to Stoney Creek, where the train passed over a large ironwork bridge. This was really spectacular, as a waterfall cascaded over the rock face.

We continued to climb, winding our way around, taking in the views back over Cairns to the Coral Sea. The landmarks of Red Bluff and Glacier Rock were pointed out, but from our seats we couldn’t see them, we then puled in to Barron Falls Station, where the train stopped for 10 minutes to allow all passengers to disembark and check out the falls from a large viewing platform.

I took my photos and then we returned to our carriage, travelling only a short distance before we made it to Kuranda Station built in 1915. We disembarked with all the other tourists and shuffled our way up the hill and into the centre.

Kuranda reminded me of Mundairing. It is a hippie, art n crafty hamlet and very tourist driven. We made our way down the main strip, crossing the road to avoid the hordes walking the same strip. We took in the views of the various buildings, making the full length and dropping in to the first of a number of markets.

We checked out the homemade goodies but with only a little interest. There is a bird, butterfly and koala zoo up here, heavily Asian driven. We didn’t bother with any of them, instead we continued our walk of the streets, walking through more markets, checking on food outlets and passing through a photo studio with stunning landscape photos of so many places we could name and say “We’ve been there”. Of course this had Paul going on about how much money we would make with mine, ha ha.

After doing the complete rounds we returned to the hippy markets where we ate a Vietnamese meal and then dropped in to a French Creperie for dessert, well over the top but so yum.

We then finished up and wandered back down the hill to the skyrail terminal to catch a cable car back down the hill at 1.15pm. The little pods hold 6 people, but as it was quiet we had the bubble to ourselves. From the pod we had great views over the rainforest below.

There were two stops along the way. The first was at Barron Falls, though the pod stopped about half way along leaving us dangling for a minute of so, which began to freak me out and of course Paul took great delight in it. We knew it would happen, as there was a child in a wheelchair that was going to be getting on after us and we had been warned as we left, it didn’t make it any easier.

We hopped out and did a wander along the boardwalk to a couple of viewing platforms where you could see the falls from the other side of the gorge. A helicopter tour was also in progress and Paul tried to take a photo with it landing on my head like a giant red baron dragonfly.

We returned to the line and were lucky to score another pod to ourselves, this time travelling the next section to Red Bluff . Here you had to get off and swap to the next line, again we chose to check out the area first, on the hunt for cassowary. There was also a good lookout to check out the rainforest.

Back at the terminal we jumped into our final pumpkin, again on our own and made our way down the final 2km stretch. This section provided fantastic views over Cairns, its outer suburbs, the Coral Sea and some off shore islands.  

Once on the ground at Smithfield we wandered the gift shop and the grounds, chewing up 30min as we waited for our bus transfer that took us back to Freshwater Station and we drove our car back to the van.

I was glad to get back in and have an opportunity to just stop. We sat about, Paul trying out the beers of Red Dragon, while I went through the pics. I noticed the cloud starting to roll in around the hills, so we took a walk to Lake Placid to check it out. It was quite cool and it began to rain.

We returned to the van and Paul organised dinner, while I kept up with the pics and blog. After eating we returned to the lake, eager to get our steps up for the day, The Italian restaurant on its banks was doing a roaring trade. We made our way back to the park, did a lap and then returned to the van ready for bed.