Australia - Kuranda Rainforest Cableway and Scenic Railway

Dear Family and Friends,

Our first stop in Australia was in Darwin. We caught a taxi into town, shopped for some t-shirts and returned to the ship.  It was a very rainy day and I do not have any pictures.

Our next stop in Australia was Cairns. Chuck booked us on a tour to go to Kuranda. Kuranda is in the hills beyond Cairns. To get there, we went by cableway over the rainforest. There were stops along the way so that we could get out and hike in the rainforest.

Here is Chuck and two of our fellow passengers. 

As we lifted up we had a nice view of the city below and the ocean beyond.

Compared to the cableways in China, this one was slow and gradual.  Better yet, no low clouds, so we had a nice clear view.

When we came to our stop we got off and hiked through the rainforest.

After we finished our trek through the rainforest we got back on the cableway and continued our journey up to Kuranda.

Kuranda is an old town, established in 1888, that is today a rainforest tourist village and the head of the Kuranda Scenic Railway.

We only had about an hour and a half to look around because we were scheduled to depart on the scenic railway back down the mountain.  There is only one train, if we missed it, we would be stuck in Kuranda.

We stopped in an open air restaurant for lunch.

Right outside our table, I saw this strange looking bird on the ground. The waitress told us it is an Australian Brush Turkey. 

Chuck ordered a Kangaroo pie. It is a pie (somewhat like a chicken pot pie) that was made from ground kangaroo meat. Notice the kangaroo on the top of the pie.
He said it was okay, but I noticed he never ordered kangaroo again on our trip.

After lunch, we had to hurry to get on our train that would take us back down to Cairns. This train is as old as the town of Kuranda. In fact, Kuranda exists because of this train. Now it is only a tourist train.

It was fun riding in the old cars. 

We had a nice day exploring the rainforest of the area.

Next post I will share about our exciting experience holding a koala bear.

Love,
Nancy