Kuranda, Qld

Day 81 – 4/8/2019 on a Midlife Adventure

One of the must do things in Cairns, Qld is the journey to Kuranda, Qld. There are a number of ways to get there.

Road – I’ve done enough km so happy to pass on that one.
Rail – Sounds good
Skyrail – Let’s start there

The journey starts out next door to the Artillery Museum that I visited yesterday where you jump into a gondola.

That quickly takes you up the treeline and with the weather still not great the view a little cloudy.

Then as I got further up the cloud cover came in for a visit.

That takes you through to the first lookout where you change gondolas after a walk around the Rain forest.

The view from this lookout was a little fogged in so I didn’t stop long here and headed further into the forest on the next Gondola.

This next section takes 15 mintues so you’re travelling some serious distance on these. The next stop is at the Barron Falls Lookout, an impressive sight during the dry season. During the wet season water floods over these rocks.

Arriving in Kuranda you walk up the hill to an excellent little village with multiple markets.

There are a number of restaurants and activities you can do to fill in your day I chose the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary and the Kuranda Birdworld.

One of the largest private butterfly houses in Australia they have around 2000 butterfly’s on display and have staff working on cocoon management to increase the population.

The next was some lunch at the Frogs Restaurant, I chose the local barramundi which was great.

This was handy as it was in the same market area as the Kuranda Birdworld home to over 60 bird species from around Australia & the world.

The birds are very friendly and will land on you and eat from your hand.

Making my way to the train station ready for the journey back down the mountain on the Kuranda Scenic Railway.

The journey home was in a little bit of style upgrading to my style of travel in the Gold Lounge.

You get a stop at the Barron Falls (other side) than the Skytrain which has a great lookout.

As the stop is only 10 minutes it gets a bit busy with everyone jumping off to get their pictures.

The journey back takes you through 9 tunnels and some very steep sections of track and over large bridges.

And past waterfalls so close you can almost touch them. (If you feel like falling off a bridge & train).

The weather came back in on the way down the mountains to Cairns, Qld but it was a nice journey that was made better by the couple of beers I enjoyed on the way down.

With so many things to see I hope the below gallery gives you some insights into whats to see.