The second last day of our holiday. The hire car has been returned and we're back on the tour bus circuit! Today is the Kuranda Tour on the Skyrail and the historic Kuranda steam train.
We had a whole day to spend in Kuranda - which turned out to be a few hours too long!
When we booked the Kuranda tour we opted for the Skyrail there, all day free time and then the train home. The other options included things like the Butterfly Sanctuary, Birdworld, the Australian Venom Zoo (I liked the sound of that but Bel vetoed me!) and the Koala Gardens. We weren't really interested in any of them except Birdworld and the Butterfly Sanctuary so we opted to wander Kuranda by ourselves thinking we'd spend plenty of time at the markets while still having time to visit the two attractions we liked the sound of.
The Skyrail was the highlight of the day for me. Bel might have the Butterfly Sanctuary just in front but for me it was definitely the Skyrail. They are like big ski lifts but the gondolas are enclosed. It's almost like being in a silent helicopter. Although since I've never been in a helicopter, silent or otherwise, that is just a guess on my part!
The Skyrail takes you up over the mountains pretty much directly to Kuranda. There are a couple of stops along the way and we checked them both out. The first is a 1km or so boardwalk around the rainforest surrounding the Skyrail terminal. The second has a walk to the lookout over Barron Falls and the Rainforest Interpretation Centre.
Barron Falls is amazing. It is 260 metres from top to bottom and although there wasn't much water going over it when we were there, it is massive and I can only imagine what it is like in full flood. It would be worth going back in the wet season just to see it roaring!
The Rainforest Interpretation Centre is really interesting too. Aimed more at kids, it has a lot of interactive displays you can play with. I did the Rainforest quiz near the door and got a perfect score. There was also a model of the rainforest and the effect the climate has had on the area over the last several thousand years.
After playing for a little while we headed back to the terminal and headed into Kuranda. First item(s) on the agenda: The Markets!
Well the Markets were another big disappointment. Mostly crap for sale. The only good place that I'd recommend is the Kuranda Candy Kitchen where they make good ol' fashioned candy. There was a sign saying to ask them about their "adult" candy but I wasn't going in because I can't enter a place like that without buying way more candy than I really need and Bel wouldn't ask ...
So wandered aimlessly for a little while before Bel admitted the Markets were a bust. There are a lot of art gallery's in Kuranda if you like that sort of thing. Bel had a browse through a couple but they weren't really our cup of tea.
Eventually we jumped onto an internet cafe terminal to see if we could find a place that served gluten free food. Bel had assumed that Kuranda, which is a lot like Daylesford in many ways, would have plenty of organic and natural options that would include gluten free. Alas, she was wrong. The one place that was listed as being Coeliac friendly and absolutely no idea what gluten was. They did offer to make Bel a nice salad but that's all she'd had all week so she'd had about enough of salads!
In the end she munched on her Sakata Rice crackers she'd packed in case of emergency and we headed over to Birdworld.
Now I liked Birdworld but Bel was less than impressed. I could have spent a lot longer in there. It was similar to the Rainforest Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary we went to earlier but much, much smaller. Which was sort of a good thing because they had twice as many birds! So there were hundreds of the buggers zooming around and most of them were pretty tame and used to people. Except for the little mutant that bit me! :)
Bel wasn't impressed though so we left Birdworld and headed over to the Butterfly Sanctuary. Now that was a good decision. We spent well over an hour in a Butterfly house that was a little bigger than the Royal Melbourne Zoo Butterfly House.
The highlight was finding a Ulysses Butterfly resting on a leave near the walkway. The Ulysses Butterfly is the big blue one that is so frequently used in adverts for Far North Queensland and the Daintree in particular. Sadly, when it is at rest, it folds its wings up and just looks like a big black bug! The one we found though was quite happy to sit on my finger though. I was just trying to lift the leaf up to get a better shot and he (she?) walked onto my finger.
We got a few photos before I put him on Bel's hand. More photos. Then Bel gave him to a little girl that was watching in awe. I think Bel made her day.
We took more photos in the Butterfly Sanctuary than the rest of the trip combined I reckon. Alas, most of them were blurred or missed the Butterfly by seconds - which is why we took so many.
Once we were done with the Butterflies though, there wasn't much else to do. We wandered down to the "Jetty", and I use the inverted comma's because the "Jetty" was pretty much a plank of wood on a barrel, to go for a cruise along the river. We had about 20 minutes to wait and if we caught the 2:30 Ferry we'd be back just in time to get the train home. By the time the Ferry arrive Bel had decided she didn't want to go so I went back to snoozing in the sun.
We went for a stroll along the banks of the river to stretch a bit before getting the train home. The train wasn't nearly as much fun as the Skyrail. I have been on the train before so I knew it was boring. Bel liked the idea of the train, the history it represented and the impressive amount of work it must of taken to build it - but agreed it was boring.
So if you're in Cairns, book a round trip on the Skyrail and read a pamphlet about the train! :)
On the way home, the bus driver was alerted by one of his colleagues that a big croc was sunning himself (herself?) on the banks of one of the rivers. There was no traffic behind us so he slowed down on the bridge and sure enough there was a huge croc and a smaller one (what is a baby croc called? A calf? A pop? A little snapper?) sitting on the banks. There was no where to stop so we could get a photo but we counted that as seeing a real croc in the wild!
They were out again the next afternoon when we were heading back to the airport - but that is tomorrow's story.