Today we headed up to Kuranda via both the Scenic Railway and the Skyrail.
We headed for the Smithfield Skyrail terminal, only about 15 minutes away, and left our car there a bit after 8am. We were taking the trip over to Kuranda on the Scenic Railway, and so we jumped on a coach transfer across to the Freshwater station – just a short trip away. Shortly before 9am, the train pulled into the station and we all excitedly jumped on board. Thankfully the trip wasn’t completely booked, and so we ended up with a booth to ourselves for the trip. The carriages were so beautifully restored and maintained.
The trip across to Kuranda took about an hour and a half all up, as the train slowly weaved its way up the hugely steep mountain range. We climbed 327 metres over the journey. Along the way, there was some great commentary talking about the different bridges and tunnels, and the incredible feat of engineering it was to build this in the 1890s. The views were just spectacular at so many points along the journey, and we got a chance to get out and look across Barron Falls and Gorge toward the end.
We wandered through Kuranda for a short while, and made our way up to the top of the village where the markets are – both the Heritage Markets and the Rainforest Markets. We had a look through, but nothing really took our fancy at all, and the rainforest markets are definitely very hippie! Lots of incense and dream catchers. Nestled in the Rainforest Markets though was a small putt putt course! We decided to give that a go and that was a bit of fun and took up some of the time.
We had some lunch beside the park in the village, and then decided to use the rest of the time to go on part of the walks through the rainforest. The walk that left from the village was called the Jumrum Creek Walk, and it was a very easy paved walking track that meandered through the incredible rainforest beside the Jumrum Creek. We crossed the creek at the bottom and then climbed back out to one of the roads on the other side. If we had more time, we could’ve kept walking along towards the Barron River – but with our Skyrail booking getting closer, we shortcutted our walk and just took the roads back to the village.
The Skyrail trip back from Kuranda to Smithfield terminal in Cairns was just amazing – it’s hard to believe that we got to ride on a gondola that stretches 7.5km across the tops of rainforests! At times, it felt surreal. The first leg takes you back to Barron Falls, and we could see the Scenic Railway station that we’d stopped at a few hours earlier on the other side of the Barron Gorge. There’s a huge cantilever lookout platform, with a partial glass floor as well.
The second leg then took you to Red Peak, which was definitely the highlight of the trip back. Here, we got to have a guided ranger tour through the short walkway around the station at Red Peak, which is all focused on the forest floor. Our guide shared some great insights and information about the area and pointed out some of the unique plants in the area and what makes them so special to a rainforest.
And we then took the final leg of the Skyrail back down the range and into Cairns. It was just a phenomenal experience, and so incredibly unique. Sure, there are now longer gondola rides elsewhere in the world (this was the longest in the world when it was built in 1995) – but I don’t think there are any that take you so intimately into a rainforest like that.
