Cairns - Sky Tram

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Cairns - Sky Tram

We book a tour this morning to head to the Great Barrier Reef the next day and head off to the Sky Tram through a rain forest which has a station about 15 minutes away. The ladies at the hotel are great and have a ton of information and recomendations. We take their advice and book a Great Barrier Reef tour with Passions of Paradise and had out to the SkyTram to Karunda.

We buy our tickets and head out to the tram. It takes us up and over one of the mountains that is close to Cairns. It's got two stops that we get off at to experience the rain forest. The first stop leads us into a tour group of Americans. We follow the tour so we can get a litte bit of info on what's going on. It is in fact a rain forrest as it meets all the criteria. Lots of rain, same vegetation, etc. We also witness a tree that is almost 100m tall. We're told that these we sought after for masts for sailing ships. A little more information on the tree tells us that dues to it's shedding bark it's immune to the parasitic nature of the _________ tree.

We cruise past the group as soon as we can so we're not stuck waiting for the next tram car for 30 minutes and continue on to the next station. This one is almost at the top of the moutain and allows us views of the Barron Falls. It's spectacular to see. Here we are in a 10 year drought, yet this river stil flows with alot of power. They harnessed it somewhat for hydro electricity even. We visit two lookouts and head back to the final leg.

At the village of Karunda we take a look around town and notice our first experience with aboriginals. This village is based on tourism and you can see nothing but small shops and cafes. At one of the many opal stores, we chat with a very knowledgable sales clerk and learn the differences between Boulder Opal, Black Opal and White opal. We don't see the 1st two much at all so it was an interesting learning experience.

There's a lot of shops to wander through and we decide to have lunch at an english pub. We're enticed in by a server who I notice doesn't have a huge Aussie accent. I order and pay for the food and ask her where she's from. Turns out she was born in Karunda, raised in Canada and moved back to Karunda. Canadian mom, American dad, Aussie born. quite the pedigree. She tells us that she pegged us as Canadians right away. Apparently we round our vowels. Interesting.

After lunch we tram it back to the car park and head back to Cairns.

We hit a movie and Domino's Pizza (gotta see what it's like over here) and head back to the room.

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Photos

SkyTram
Karunda SkyTram station

Tree = Mast
These trees were sought after for super strong masts for sailboats

SkyTram
Looking back from the skytram

Baron Falls
Wooo - dirty water makes nice looking falls

Sandy & Marie
Is this my mom and dad? nope - Trish and I.

Comments

[E. Davenport]

???
So was it worth it? I'm planning a trip for my parents and aunt and was trying to figure out how many days to spend in Cairns.

[mrhooie]

This was our favorite spot
I think this was our favorite spot despite the weather. It depends what they like to do, but a day cruise to the Great Barrier Reef is worth it. the city itself is worth a day and half. Plus there are other outlying areas for daytrips that we wished we would have planned for. Definitly worth it