Seeing Australia from the scenic train

My dad would of definitely liked today and it would be something he'd choose to do on a day out on our holidays. Our hostel is opposite the central Cairns station which offers trips on their scenic railway train. The track is a feat of engineering and was completed in 1891 to provide a vital link for resources between Cairns and near by settlements including Kurunda, it's finally stop. It became necessary after gold was discovered in Cairns. It's 37km long and was all built by hand with 55 bridges and 15 hand carved tunnels, the longest being 490m which claimed the lives of 7 workers during it's construction. Many men also died of dysentery and malaria because Cairns use to be swamp land before they filled it with mud and rocks to make it inhabitable. We set off at 8:30am and initially had the carriage to ourselves for the first 20 minutes. We then stopped at another station where the rest of the passangers got on and we were sat with a couple and their two boys, both under 5. The older boy who was opposite me did ask me things but if I tried to interact with him he'd shy away. Seeing there excited faces made the journey even more enjoyable. At one point the little boy showed me how high he can jump and it reminded me so much of my niece who was trying so desperately to jump before we left and believed so much she was doing though he feet never left the floor. We saw incredible scenery including a spectacular bridge that was built on a curve with a waterfall behind, a very difficult build during those times. At one stage the workers had to be suspended down the cliff face by ropes and carve out the track by hand. We had a commentary which told us the facts and stories along the way and we also stopped to disembark for 10 minutes to see a huge waterfall that is being used as hydroelectric power source. We arrived at our destination of Kurunda and the station had been kept in it's same old fashioned very British style. We were excited to be having tea and scones at the tea rooms on the platform and I imagined cute little tea cups and saucers and fancy plates for our scones. As you can see from the photo what we got wasn't exactly what I pictured! It wasn't even clotted cream. We had 3 and a half hours before our return trip so we explored the local markets and area. It's a very artsy place with lots of galleries and hand made trinkets. The shops we couldn't get over were ones selling stuffed crocodiles, crocodile and kangaroo skin products and even purses and bags made from a whole frogs skin. It was so beyond gross, who would walk around with a hollowed out frog as a bag?! Our return journey was a little less nice. We were with a Chinese tour group who spoke no English so didn't know what was being said or what they were meant to be looking at and as we were sat by the window there was lots of leaning over us to take photos. At one point one of the women even rested her bum on my knee while she took a photo! It was like we were transported back to China. We made it back to Cairns and after a little bit of shopping we came back and had another more successful curry making session. No one else was in the kitchen which helped as well. Tomorrow we head to our next stop on the east coast so we're packing once again ready for our first bus trip of many in Australia.Read more