Cairns Day 2

Today was a pretty fun day! We were up and out of the hotel by 7:30 and walking towards the central rail station in Cairns for our scenic ride to Kuranda.

After getting checked in, we sat on the long, red, cushioned benches while we waited to leave. The train cars were pretty plain on the outside except for the front car which was blue with some pictures painted on it as well as the Kuranda Scenic Railway logo. As we sat and read through our information fan (it was SO humid and hot), we learned that the train cars are from the early 1900s which accounts for the decor and all the wood. The interiors have been restored.

The Kuranda railway has a dark past with many of those that worked on it dying due to the dangerous conditions. It was also very hard work digging out tunnels with only shovels and picks and working on the edges of cliffs. There are 15 hand-made tunnels and 37 bridges built to climb from sea level to 328 metres up the Macalister Range. Three million cubic metres of earth had to be excavated during construction. The railway was finished in 1891 and was significant in both World Wars and was crucial to being supplies to and from the Kuranda region eventually becoming a passenger train.

There were some beautiful views of the mountains and valleys and at one point we could see all the way to the coast where the Great Barrier Reef sits. Some of the bends were pretty tight for a train to be taking which was interesting to watch as a passenger. One bridge also had a beautiful waterfall on one side. It was a nice train journey with some spectacular views.

One we arrived at Kuranda, we raced from the station through the village up to Koala Gardens. I had pre-booked entry, which we were late for, in anticipation of holding a koala 🐨. Once we got to the koala desk after entering the gardens, I realized I'd only booked patting instead of holding (only patting was available online apparently)! Luckily there were still some holding slots available at noon, but that meant we had an hour to wait. It was not an hour wasted! We visited the koalas that were sleeping on their trees and spent a good chunk of time in the wallaby area. The kangaroos and wallabys are out and about in their enclosure and you can feed and interact with them. It was great! After much effort and patience, a little kangaroo ate some food from my hand.

We said goodbye to the kangaroos and went back up to hold the koala. The koala I held was called Milky. She was soft, like a wool sweater, and much smaller and lighter than I expected. She clung right onto me, but the claws weren't sharp. She looked right at me at one point too, and I swear she smiled! The koala keeper said Milky thinks I smell good and that's why she was looking right at me like that.

We said goodbye to Milky and finished our walk around the Koala Gardens area visiting quokkas, nocturnal animals, and some reptiles. Allan had an interesting encounter with a snake. When he put his face near the glass, the snake climbed up the glass and then it fell back down to the bottom of its glass enclosure like a tree in slow motion. It was pretty cool!

After the Koala Gardens we had some lunch (ramen noodles are basically what we life off of these days) and took a slow walk through the village and all it's little shops. Back down at the bottom of the village, we got the Skyrail back towards Cairns.

The Skyrail is a long cable car with a couple of stops along the way. It was great to see the rainforest, one of the oldest in the world, from the sky. We scoured the trees for animals, but didn't see any. Our first stop was the Baron Gorge that we saw this morning from the other side of the forge while on the train. With all the rain they've been having in the area, the gorge was very powerful. The sun came out at one point and we got a rainbow over the area.

We got back on the cable car and went about 15 minutes to Red Peak. This stop has a boardwalk where you walk through a small section of the forest and see some of the trees and plants. We arrived just in time for the ranger talk at 3pm. He walked us along the boardwalk for about 20 minutes and talked to us about the forest. The Kuranda Forest has been around for over 200 million years and has been largely unaffected by changing climate, unlike other forests, so the animals haven't had to adapt. One of the trees in the forest grows until it's about 2-4 meters above the canopy, and then stops growing up and starts growing out and the trunk gets bigger and bigger. The tree is also coniferous, like a pine tree, but hasn't adapted to pine needles so the leaves are the texture of pine needles but the size of small leaves. We also saw basket ferns which grow on trees and can hold up to a metric ton of water if big enough. That's a lot of water! It was a pretty neat little talk, and was great to learn more about the forest we'd spent our day in.

We got back on the Skyrail for the last 10 minutes or so if travel above the forest. We kept an eye out for the plants that the ranger told us about. We saw the climbing palm that grows something similar to a vine out of its leaves with little barbs on it to stick to trees and climb to the top of the canopy all the while growing leaves off of the barbed vine thing. It made the trip back like an I Spy game.

Once back at the entrance for the Skyrail, we got a shuttle bus back to Cairns. We popped into the shop for some dinner before walking back to the hotel via the esplanade and boardwalk. The ride was out so we saw the mud flats and mangroves. There's not really a beach in Cairns, but eventually the mud flats did turn a bit sandy for people to walk in. Back at the hotel, we had showers and dinner before some trip admin and getting ready to visit the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow 😄!

It was a beautiful and wholesome day ❤️Leggi altro