Australia Day 3 - Kuranda Rainforest Village

Frank and I opted to let our bodies rest this morning and not go running in preparation for the tour of our second World Heritage Listed site in as many days.  After a short bus ride to a cozy little Queensland town just up the road from Cairns, we boarded the Kuranda Scenic Railway and began an hour long chug up the mountain following the path laid out by workers in the 1890s to transport gold from the mountain tops to the sea.    The ride was quant and filled with nice waterfalls and scenic vistas; the brief histories given by the narrator were hard to hear over the clacking of the wheels and I missed hearing them because I am sure they were interesting.  At length, we reached the village of Kuranda.  I was excited about this particular excursion because it was a unanimous choice among the Australian officers Frank served with in Kabul for what they thought we should definitely do while in Australia.  The rainforest was beautiful, the meat pies were delicious (Frank had steak, I had lamb), and the views from the Skyrail on the way back down the mountain were mesmerizing.  However, the town of Kuranda was little more than touristy stores filled with souvenirs and trashy t-shirts.   As we were wondering around wondering how we were going to fill the 4 hours of free time we’d been given in a town where we saw everything meaningful in a 20 minute walk, we happened upon the tourism center (or centre as they would write it).  Outside the building there was a map with various walks we could take through the rainforest.  Armed with our bug spray and rain jackets we headed into the trees.  Actually it was all a  paved (or semi-paved, where they left out a few 5ft chunks here and there for us to walk on the dirt) trail and it took us a little over an hour.  Needless to say, we were the only members of our group mostly filled with geriatrics, who attempted this walk through the rainforest.  I don’t know what the rest of them did up there in that little town surrounded by cheap trinkets and over-priced change purses made of kangaroo hide.   

Meat Pies!

After our walk we took the SkyRail back town to the little town whose name I can’t remember outside of Cairns and that whole experience was awesome and took us well over an hour.  There were 2 different lookout points, each with a scenic walk, and although the second opportunity was out of reach due to fog, we latched on to a very informative and entertaining briefing by a park ranger who taught us about the wildlife in the rainforest, the most fascinating of which was the Southern Cassowary, an emu looking bird but with a blue head and a large helmet that protects him from falling fruit.  Cross him and he could disembowel you with a few slashes of his powerful claw toes!  It was back to Cairns for dinner and a stroll around town before a little packing in preparation for our next day.