Yesterday we ventured away from the water to visit a little village tucked away high in the rainforest: Kuranda. Over a hundred years ago European settlers discovered gold in the hills around here and as a result of the ensuing gold rush, a railway was built up the side of the mountains, through the rainforest and across several rivers and canyons, so as to allow for efficient transport of supplies up the mountain and export of the gold to the nearby coastal towns. This railroad also played a pivotal role during WWII, but soon after mainly tourists utilized the trains and that is what it is today . . . a tourist train. So, because we are tourists, we booked a ride on the train to Kuranda.
I think the old train was remodeled a bit, but it still looks as it did back in the day, except the flat screen monitors on the wall are bit newer.
We rode in train car #11 (out of 13 or 14), which meant we could watch the front of the train as we rounded the sharp bends.
We had some awesome views of the valley below: Cairns and the Pacific coastline.
We stopped at Barron Falls, which afforded another spectacular view.
I don’t know what it is about trains, but it’s just fun to ride in them (and we’ve had our share of trains back home). I will say one thing, though—this was no bullet train. I think the average speed for the trip was somewhere between that of a racing snail and a turtle with a broken leg.
The trip took about and hour and a half, but we finally made it to Kuranda!! Land of Australian hippies and lots of tourists.
We had a very short amount of time to spend in Kuranda, so we made beeline for Tucker’s Wursthous (“Best wurst in the Universe”) and waited 20 minutes for Lyana’s Brackwurst and my Emu Wurst (it’s on the menu, just under Crocodile Wurst).
I’ve never tasted Emu before, and to be completely honest, there wasn’t anything special about it except it was Emu and I was in Australia. So there you go.
After lunch we had less than an hour to stop at as many souvenir shops as we could on our to the Skyrail station in order to get down the mountain in time for the show (keep reading, that’s coming too). Nothing much to note about the souvenir shops here except for one thing—watch out for imposters. A lot of people (myself included) believe that it’s important to shop Australian when possible. For example, almost every single shop here sells painted boomerangs. But even though many of them look similar, they are not. Check to see first that they are certified “Made in Australia” AND they are hand-painted by an Australian artist. After looking at a LOT of boomerangs, I found that many are “Made in China” (tell me, who wants a boomerang made in China?). Even more, there are stacks of boomerangs in many shops that say they are “Made in Australia,” which is true, but they are mass produced at a factory, not hand-painted by an artist. Anyway, suffice to say, we ended up walking out of a lot of shops empty-handed until we found just the right one.
Okay, no more boomerang talk, for now. We eventually made our way to the Skyrail station (think gondola, like a ski-lift) to make our way down the mountain. In all my thoughts of Australia, I never imagined it having a rainforest, but here we were cruising several meters about the treetops of a bona fide rainforest.
Lyana may appear calm and cool-headed in this picture. But take off the shades and what do you see . . .?
Yes, every time I would put my hand out the opening above the window, my dear, sweet, caring bride would tremble with fear . . . that I would drop the camera to what could only be certain death . . . er, breaking into tiny pieces, in the forest below.
And here is our favorite gondola, #84. We had to say goodbye here, but soon, after a short nature tour, we would meet a new gondola, #25, who would safely transport us to the base of the mountain. Side note: how do you pronounce gondola? I always said gon-DO-la (emphasis on the caps) until someone laughed at me (a certain dental assistant last year), so now I try to say GON-do-la.
I put this picture in because this is the most important tree in the rainforest. The tour guide said the Aborigines would strip the bark and chew on it to relieve toothaches. Remember that next time you’re lost in the jungle without your dentist.
Here’s where we met up with #25 to head back to Carns, I mean Cerns, no, Carens, wait, Carrrrns, no, that’s not it either, Cans, yes, that’s right.
Here’s looking out the GON-do-la window (actually, this is me holding the camera outside the GON-do-la window while Lyana clenched her teeth. I offered her some tree bark, just in case).
We’re getting pretty good at taking pictures of ourselves. Sure, sometimes all we get is an ear or my forehead, but hey, it’s digital so who cares how many shots it takes.
Finally made it to the bottom of the mountain, and rushed over to Tjapukai, the Aborigine experience. There were four native Aborigines (from the Tjapukai tribe) who performed and led us through the several stations (I guess there were a few others who were supposed to be there too, but one guy told us they had too much fun at the local Reggae festival the night before and, well, they weren’t fit to work).
First there was a 20 minute show, where they demonstrated dancing, dijiridoo playing and fire-starting with sticks not including a match (by the way, in Tjapukai language, it’s not called a dijiridoo, it’s called a yiggee-yiggee, which is about the coolest word I’ve ever heard).
Here they are dancing on stage.
Here they are pretending to kill a kangaroo (as played by the big guy on the ground).
After the dance show, they brought out some props and explained the several different kinds of boomerangs (flying, hooked, crossed, club, musical) and also types of jungle food and how to not poison yourself. After that, we headed to an open range where we practiced throwing spears and boomerangs.
After we practiced, I talked to the head guy (on my left in the photos) and agreed to let me purchase a couple of the boomerangs (after everyone else had gone). I’m going to toss them around back home and hopefully catch myself a kangaroo for dinner.
Shortly after the Tjapukai shows (there were two more after the spears and boomerangs), we headed back to our hotel, then out to a quick dinner at the corner café: I enjoyed a hearty steak burger with cheese, lettuce, tomato (gave to Lyana), onions, beetroot, bacon and sauce with fries. Lyana had mackerel fish and chips. Yum.
Robert
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