Skyrail Rainforest Cableway and Kuranda

The mountainside village of Kuranda has a reputation as a sort of hippie enclave. Located several miles off the main highway, it can be reached via a twisty road, a scenic railway or the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway. The tourist guides suggest that you take the railway in one direction and the cableway in the other, but that takes a bit of planning because the train only runs a couple of times a day.

Feeling somewhat bewildered by all the tour options presented in various brochures, we finally decided to just drive to the cableway terminus in the town of Smithfield just outside Cairns and figure out what to do from there. Unfortunately, we we took the wrong exit on a roundabout and ended up on the twisty road and once you're on that road, you are committed. No other roads intersect it, and there is no way to turn around.

"No worries", as Australians were always telling us. The town of Kuranda has quite a few stores and two open air markets which specialize in crafts, but I wasn't in the mood for shopping and since Walt never is, we boarded the cableway and began our journey over the rainforest.

We passed over the tracks of the scenic railway and the twisty road.

There are two stops along the way where you can disembark. We got off at the Barron Falls Station, wandered down the elevated walkway, and found ourseves looking down at the extroardinary Barron Falls.

We also disembarked at the Red Peak station, and I took a short walk through the rainforest. The picture on the left is taken looking up into a Kauri tree. The picture on the right is of a Basket Fern. There are many of these epiphytes in the forest - plants that take up residence in taller host plants. They create their own ecosystems by capturing leaf litter and water and in turn serve as a home for large communities of insects and animals.

The cableway is about 4-1/2 miles long, and it takes about 1-1/2 hours to ride one way. This was the view as we approached the Smithfield terminus.

The attendants kept urging us to get off at Smithfield, but we elected to stay on and just enjoy the ride back to Kuranda. Here are some pictures taken along the way.

Here's one final shot as we passed over Barron Falls.

The next day we would board the plane back to Sydney and spend one more day in that city. Our Australian adventure was drawing to a close.