Blogs from Kuranda, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 5

Another early start today, we arrive at Cairns Central Station at 8am and head for our tickets, today we are due to travel up by train on the scenic railway and down by skyrail. We have also booked tickets for Birdworld, Butterfly Sanctuary, Koala Land and Venom Zoo. We saw birds free flying in the aviary and Rob made friends with one or two! You will see Rob's expression change on the picture that was because the bird actually bit him and drew blood! Next the butterflies, i was lucky enough to have the rare blue butterfly land on me, the difficult part was getting the picture to show this! We also had access to the breeding lab and had a guided tour with amazing facts - the best being the female is the dominator! and ... read more

On Sunday morning, we went for a wander around the huge Port Douglas market, before driving south towards Cairns, and turning inland at Smithfield towards the mountain village of Kuranda. Kuranda was somewhere we had planned to visit in 2005, but then we only got as far north as Cairns before turning inland and spending 3 days crossing the outback to Alice Springs. In fact, we saw most of this trip as a continuation/completion of the east coast Australia leg of our first world tour - Port Douglas, the Daintree, Cape Tribulation, Mossman Gorge, Kuranda were all within our sights, but the chance to go overland to Alice came up and there was only one bus with a couple of seats, so fate determined our course. Don't worry, we always say, we'll come back another day... ... read more

Day 97 - Kuranda (day trip!) What a great nights sleep back in our lovely little caravan, staying in the resort the other night was nice but there’s no place like ‘home’! The weather isn’t looking too bad when we venture out this morning which is great news as we’re going to Kuranda via the scenic railway and coming back on the Skyrail. The journey starts from the Freshwater station which in itself is very picturesque. When it comes we’re delighted to see that it’s the fancy pants train with all the gorgeous artwork on the front! Beautiful! The carriages are really lovely too, very oldie worldie feel to them! The train makes its spectacular journey through the Barron Gorge national park soaking up breathtaking views along the way. Our photo’s won’t do it justice at ... read more

We went up to Kuranda for the first time on the Skyrail. You get to ride above the rainforest and watch the canopy, including the occasional bright blue butterfly or bird. In a couple of places you get off and there's even a ranger-led walk. He pointed out several rainforest trees to us. The most important to remember is the "wait a while", also called "lawyer vine", for reasons which will shortly be obvious. The vine starts life in the top of the canopy, then works its way down. It has hundred of tiny recurved hooks on it, so it can hold onto, and climb down, anything. When it gets to the bottom it takes root, then attempts to take over the thing that it originally landed on. The only tree that can defend itself is ... read more

Kuranda Village ist ein kleines Dorf (750 Einwohner) am Barron River auf der westlichen Seite der Kuranda Range, einem Teil der Great Dividing Range und liegt durchschnittlich 380 Meter über dem Meeresspiegel. Kuranda ist vom Regenwald umschlossen und befindet sich 25 Kilometer nordwestlich von Cairns. ... read more