Day 5: Cairns - Kuranda Scenic Railway and Skyrail

We were out of the door at 8:15am as we had to be at a shuttle connection at the Skyrail terminal for 8:50.  Peak hour in Cairns was non-existent, so we were there with plenty of time to spare.  We rode the shuttle bus to Freshwater Station where we boarded the Kuranda Scenic Train.

Note Rohan holding his Train engine souvenir

 

The trip took about 1hour 30mins and was quite slow.  Rohan enjoyed the 15 tunnels.  Julian wasn't into it as much as I was expecting.

We had some sandwiches on the train, so were ready to go when we arrived in Kuranda.  We took a stroll up the main street, which was filled with tourist shops, to the Butterfly Sanctuary.  Unfortunately Rohan was tired and grumpy and really didn't enjoy the butterflies.  Julian had a great time there.  The tip from the travel agent to wear white if you would like the butterflies to land on you wasn't as effective as I expected - light blue probably would have been better.

After the Butterflies, we walked to Birdworld.  This is really just one big aviary with lots of colourful birds.  I didn't like it much as the birds kept swooping past me.  Thankfully Rohan was a little less scared here.

After a mild Rohan hissy-fit about not wanting to go to the toilet (I overheard a guy say"And that is why I don't want children"...) we walked into Kuranda for the daily holiday ice-cream.  We went to the little cooler trailer of the Kuranda Tropical Fruit Ice -Cream company.  Once again the boys decided on vanilla and Steve and I chose Macadamia (no fruit for us!).  We ate them on a bench outside a clothes shop and had a great time people watching. The ice creams were delicious.

It was only 1:30pm but we were done!  We walked back to the Skyrail and after a short wait, we climbed into our gondola for the return journey.  Both boys LOVED the gondola.  I wasn't too keen on how high up we were.

Barron Falls

It was a great day but tiring for everyone.  So when went back to the hotel and we all had some downtime.

We walked back to Barnacle Bills for dinner.  Steve had a Jambalaya and I had Coral Trout, the boys had fish and chips.  We went next door to Movenpick for the second ice cream of the day and it was vanilla again for the boys :)  We walked home via the Night Market where we bought a small backpack and souvenir t-shirts for the boys.  It ended up being a later night than I would have liked but they held up ok and settled into bed without too much fuss.