Last time we were in Cairns we took the trip up to Kuranda, a tourist village at the top of the mountains, via cable car going up, and by the Kuranda scenic railway going down. This time, we were driven up a steep, winding road to the village, with a short stop at a lookout over the Barron Gorge. Like last time, I was struck by the size of the chasm the river had carved over the eons. But the several waterfalls, which were probably quite substantial in reality, looked like trickles in comparison.
I wrote a blog about our last visit to Kuranda and it’s probably worth reading it (here’s the link) to give you a comparison to this one. For a start, the weather was completely different, being actually fairly cool, and with low humidity, as opposed to last time’s sultry conditions. The rain that had lashed the coast still threatened here and there, but ended up to be no more than a couple of showers. Perhaps for that reason the village was much less crowded.
All in all, we’d seen most of it last time. We’d been to the walk-in aviary to see the birds, weren’t all that interested in the other animal displays, so we mooched around enjoying the atmosphere and talking to the locals. Pete’s good at that. While I was taking pictures of the DC3 above, Pete was talking to a man selling ice cream from a van. He was about our vintage, an old sailor who had served on HMAS Sydney (the third one) and he knew his naval history. He mentioned HMAS Sydney 1, which sank the German raider Emden in WW1, and HMAS Sydney 2 which sank, and was sunk by, the German raider Kormoran in WW2.
We found a gemstone and fossil museum and went down to take a look. It was fascinating. The owner had turned his hobby into a job and he was more than happy to tell us about the copy of an allosaurus skeleton guarding his shop. Needless to say, he has ammonites and coprolites and all the usual pretty stuff like amethyst and agate.
There’s a distinct German flavour to parts of Kuranda. One shop sells German small goods, including a few varieties of German sausage served in various ways for lunch. I opted for käseknacker served in a hot dog roll with fried onions, no sauerkraut, eaten with fingers. Pete, always much classier, had his sausage on a plate with German potato salad and sauerkraut, eaten with a knife and fork.
Kuranda is full of arcades and stalls selling souvenirs, clothes, books – you name it. Pete bought a recipe book for “Indian style” food, and I couldn’t go past a bag with a baby elephant on it. I don’t need another bag – I’ll frame the picture.
Eventually we headed for the train to travel back to Cairns. This was much more comfortable than the sauna-like conditions we endured last time, when every seat on the train was filled. We had an entire carriage almost to ourselves, maybe 25 people in all. We were in the classier service, too, drinking several glasses of champagne and munching on salted macadamia nuts as the train eased its way down the mountain.
After we were returned to the hotel, Pete and I went for a wander. The Mantra Esplanade Hotel has seen better days, but it’s in a great location, right at the start of Cairns’s food and entertainment district. Restaurants and bars, dive and tour shops, and souvenir places line the street. Every kind of restaurant imaginable is along there, offering food from cheap and filling to Masterchef stuff. There’s also a wonderful place called the Night Markets where you can pick up all sorts of tourist bargains as well as take away food from stalls. We found a T shirt shop selling T shirts for as little as $8 – they had stitched designs as well as the usual stuck on patterns and – get this – they were made in Australia. I bought 3.
Dinner that night was at another sporting club offering a seafood buffet. It was an improvement on the previous evening, but frankly we would have preferred to stroll down the Esplanade in town to see what caught our fancy, at our own expense. It’s much more fun and involves you in the life of the city. Organised eating is fine when there’s little to no choice, like in an outback pub.
We’d come across plenty of those in the rest of our journey.
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