Day 16 - Skyrail Rainforest Cableway & Kuranda Railway

My first look out the window revealed that it was not raining today. At least not yet. Wisps of clouds revealed blue sky, something we had not seen in a little while. There was hope.

Today we had booked a trip up the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway to the village of Kuranda and then the Railway from Kuranda down. The activity included all of us, so Steve and Margaret, Alf and Di, and Laureen and me. Since Alf and Di had driven up to Cairns, they had a vehicle, so the six of us met in the lobby at 10:00 AM where I was greeted by Margaret with her customary greeting, "Hello Sleeping Beauty."

From there we walked to the neighbouring travel guide and looked to book our Great Barrier Reef excursion for Monday next week (today was Friday). As it turns out, Monday was booked as a charter, so it was not available, but Saturday (tomorrow) was; so, we went ahead and made the booking. After we each had paid, we jumped into the two cars and headed for Smithfield, which is the starting point for the cable cars. The drive was uneventful, except that I was leading and it appears I missed the turnoff, so we had to turn around and make our way back to the driveway of the venue. Sigh. That's what happens when you let the Canadian lead in Australia. 

The six of us took the cableway (the gondola's hold up to 6 people, so we were all together for the duration),  floating high above the dense, ancient rainforest. From the cablecar, we had incredible views—endless green stretching to the horizon (you can even see the ocean in the first picture), the occasional glimpse of a winding river, and the towering Barron Falls in the distance. We stopped at Red Peak to walk through the thick rainforest, where the air was warm and humid and filled with the sounds of water and rustling leaves. 

At Barron Falls, we watched the water thunder down the gorge, a reminder of just how wild this place really is. It was a mix of adventure and quiet moments, taking it all in together—laughing and reminiscing about our 2016 Europe trip, and just enjoying the ride and the stunning rainforest scenery.

This was our third and final leg of the Skyrail, which terminated at Kuranda, and I managed to catch a picture of the Barron river (Steve was looking for Crock's and claimed he found a few down there - I didn't see any) as well as a Norman Rockwell like photo of the girls sitting opposite us in the Gondola. I'd be interested in your caption for this photo in the comments below.

The Barron River

[Your Caption For This Photo]

We arrived at Kuranda and spent the next few hours walking around, checking out the shops and having lunch. Lunch was at the Karanda Rainforest View Restaurant and the food was very good. We sat at a nice round table, with A/C nearby (oh man this place is humid) and the topic of Footie came up. Once they get going, it's hard to get them to stop. When we were done, we walked and checked out the local shops. The place is definitely touristy and we had walked around enough to be able to do a little price comparison to know that it was a little pricey up here.  

That, however, did not stop me from picking up a hand made boomerang with some aboriginal painting on it. Steve was checking them out to help me make sure that I bought a real one, and not one made in some other country and brought in to sell to the tourists. The one I picked up is carved from one piece of wood (not laminated like some of the knock-off's), and is signed on the back that it was hand-made in Australia. 

The train down from Karanda was to leave at 3:30 PM and we were to be there by about 3:00 to make sure that we made it on the train. We had our fill of strolling through the market and shops so we went a little early and found a place to sit at the train station.

The train was hot.  Hot and Humid. It did't move very quickly, so the breeze that entered through the windows was just teasing of what could have been. The train ride was an hour and a half with a stop at a lookout point at Barron falls, from the opposite side we had just seen it from.

After taking these pictures, and hopping back on the train (we only had 10 minutes at this stop), someone from our group, I'm not sure who it was, pointed out that there was a very large spider walking along the railing.  I attempted a couple of pictures. The thing is as big as your hand.

One more group shot of us riding the train.

We arrived at Freshwater Station, which was not the place that we parked our cars. As part of our package, there was a bus waiting to take us to take us back to our point of origin. Once we arrived, we decided to head over to Guzman y Gomez for dinner tonight. Although the food was good, I'm not sure why restaurants need to have the music blaring so loud that you can't hear the person across from you. 

From there we drove back to the hotel, and we gave Alf and Di the small gifts we brought from Canada.

Tomorrow is going to be another long day as we are heading out to the Great Barrier Reef to do some snorkelling. 

Curt and Laureen in Cairns, Australia