Railways and Skyrails

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Today I arranged a trip to Kuranda which is small settlement in the rainforest. I took a scenic train trip to the settlement, the railway was built in the late 1800's by men with picks and shovels and it's a pretty amazing stretch of railway track spanning deep gorges and tunneling through mountain sides. It's really difficult to imagine how they achieved this railway all that time ago.

The Kuranda settlement itself was nothing to shout about. Loads of tourist trap curio shops selling junky decorative trinkets. However, my trip included entry into the animal parks in the town where I spent most of my time. Far and away the best place was the Butterfly Sanctuary. They have ~ 500 butterflys inside an aviary and you walk around watching them go about their business. The guided tours were very casual but informative.

The trip back to Cairns was on the Skyrail gondola, which gives great views over the rainforest. Trees stretch in every direction like buildings. Tomorrow I've booked myself onto a dive trip (the main reason for coming to Cairns). Hopefully the weather holds, it's started to cool down a bit today.

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