A Day in Kuranda

Kuranda Scenic Railway

Barron Falls

Kuranda Koala Gardens - Baby Wallaby

Kuranda Koala Gardens - Notice the baby in the pouch

Kuranda Birdworld

Kuranda Butterfly Sanctuary- Ulysses Butterfly

Kuranda Heritage Markets

Kuranda Skyrail

Kuranda Skyrail in action

The view from the Skyrail as we approach the final stop.

A Day in Kuranda

There are a few options to get to Kuranda.  You can drive, take the Scenic Railway or the Skyrail.  If you are staying in Cairns and don't have access to a car, there are transfers available to both the Skyrail and Railway.  From our research, it seems most people take one means of transportation up and then the other back down into Cairns.   We chose to do the Railway in the morning and then the Skyrail back.  I loved the Skyrail!  My husband was a bit nervous which I found amusing because he is definitely the more adventurous of the two of us.  Perhaps it was the height of the Skyrail or the fact that it tends to slow down as it goes up and you kind of feel like you might get stuck, but we didn't.  If we go back, we will do the Skyrail both ways as it was faster than the train and now that we did the train once, we're pretty satisfied.

Kuranda was a great little town to explore.  There were so many shops and my favorite, Koala Gardens.  There are no pictures of koalas here because I just put the one up of Chibby a few days ago and I think there will be a whole post dedicated to these adorable marsupials shortly.  We did buy the ticket that got us into the Koala Gardens, Butterfly Sanctuary and Birdworld.  We spent the most time in Koala Gardens because of the koalas, wallabies and kangaroos.  I could have gone through the other two places really quickly, but my husband loves any kind of wildlife, so, we spent quite a bit of time in the others as well.  That left us little time to shop and/or eat.  We had to grab a sandwich to take to the Skyrail because we had a specific return time.  When we originally booked the trip, we were told we had two options for our return time, but when we checked in the morning of the trip for the train, we were told we had to return at a certain time.  We really would have enjoyed more time in Kuranda, so, this was disappointing to us.

The Skyrail is interesting in that you get off of it a few times at various stations to get on another leg of the trip.  You have the option to get right back on or to explore the rainforest a bit.  We chose to explore the little trails they had set up at each stop and there were some beautiful views from the trails as well as the Skyrail.

We really were generally surprised at the amount of activities available in this region of Australia and wish we had allotted more time for Queensland.  In fact, if we go back, which we hope we will, we would probably spend a week or more in this area.  There are so many more things we wanted to see and so many things we only learned about once we got to Cairns.

The only part of this visit that I didn't like is that the little teddy bear you see in my profile picture went missing.  He has traveled with me for the past seven years and has been all over the world.  Our dog at home has a matching bear, so, it was always my connection to her while we were away.  Well, I guess this was teddy's favorite spot because he chose to stay behind somewhere between the Railway (the last picture I have of him) and the Night Markets.  I've tried to find him and have sent emails to the tour operators and everything, but no luck.  So, Teddy, wherever you are, you are missed.