Friday, May 13, 2011

Cairns – Kuranda Railway

Today we took the Public Bus in to Cairns. We don't know it the drivers get paid by how fast they get to the next stop, but we had to hang on for dear life. At the Cairns City Center we caught the Kuranda Scenic Railway. The rail line construction began because of the discovery of Gold. The railway was started in 1887 and was built in three phases and not completed until 1910. It was an engineering marvel. The 15 tunnels were all built by handpicks and shovels. On the ride up we pass waterfalls, Barron Falls being the largest at 329 meters above sea level and drops 265 meters. The train passed beautiful scenes, looking back at the city of Cairns and to the Ocean. Kuranda is located in the middle of the world Heritage Rainforest 1,000 feet above Cairns. In the 1960 the Hippies arrived in Kuranda and revived the community with Art and Crafts and have made it a tourist destination. They have Art markets. If you ever get there have the homemade Ice Cream in the Fudge shop. Yum! It was a lovely day walking around the village of Kuranda. We really enjoyed it. I would recommend this trip to anyone.

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