Cairns, or is that Cans, or Kee-an-s???

March 10

Here we are once again in probably the most mispronounced city in all of Australia – and that takes some doing! Most of us would say Caerns, you know, say it the way it looks, but somehow the Aussies seem to lose interest in saying ‘r’s the later in a word that they appear. So the easiest way to make like an Australian and pronounce it right is to say ‘Caaaans’.

Now that today’s diction lesson is over, we can get into our visit. We’ve been here twice in the last five years, so we were wondering just what we would do for the day. In talking to a few of our friends on board, we decided to take the Kuranda Scenic Railway to the town of Kuranda and the SkyRail gondola ride back.

The day started out nice enough as we sailed into port, beyond the marina and right past the passenger terminal! Huh? We did finally land at a wharf in the commercial area, and found out that the passenger terminal is under construction/renovation. And then we waited for the ship to be cleared, a process that seemed endless because of the coronavirus precautions the port authorities were taking. It was pointed out later that in fact Cairns is closer to Papua New Guinea than it is to much of the rest of Australia, being up on the Cape York Peninsula, and there is a legitimate concern over health issues coming into the area from outside.

We were finally allowed out on our tours, but we had to go without our regular tour escorts and their ID ‘paddles’, as no crew or staff were being allowed off the ship. There were 30 of us on our tour; we hoped that everyone would stay together without our ‘cat-herder’ bringing up the rear, as there would be a lot of splitting up the group during the day….

We headed out to the Kuranda Scenic Railway by bus, and arrived at Freshwater Station a few minutes before the train. Here we were already concerned, as there were multiple tours from the ship taking the train and not everyone was in the same class of railcar. That did work out in the end, and we had a nice trip up to Kuranda, although we could see the clouds building as we rode along.

Clouds started to build as we rode past sugar cane fields.

The locomotives are painted with dreamtime symbols
from legends of the local aboriginals, the Tjapukai

Inside the first class car with Renee and Kathy and
the rest of our tour group

The Stoney Creek Falls, bridge and the last of the train's coaches

Construction on the Kuranda Railway started in 1887 to bring miners from Cairns to the gold fields in the Tablelands beyond the town of Kuranda. There was no stable supply route to bring supplies to the small communities, and the wet seasons would usually wash out the roads. The railway was something of a feat of construction, with 14 tunnels and a number of impressive bridges. And it has stories by the hundreds. There were even hotels along the rail line – goodness only knows where, since most of the time we were looking at either a sheer rock face on one side or a slope on the other – for the workers’ time off, and of course no tale of brawn and bravery is complete without a few larger-than-life characters. The commentary as we rode along was really informative and interesting.

Barron Falls view #1

Once in Kuranda, we had some time to wander around the small town, visit some of the attractions, that included a Butterfly Farm and a small Wildlife Park where you could pose for a photo with a Koala….which we had already done before. We wandered around and had lunch at Annabel’s Takeaway Pies, because they looked so good and Monica’s brother always raves about the pies when he returns from Australia or New Zealand. We just had to try them!

Monica had the chicken and veg pie in front,
and Larry had a sausage roll. Yummy!

After lunch and a little more walking to start working it off, the group headed for the SkyRail gondola to take us back down to sea level. A new stop had been opened at Barron Falls since the last time we were on the gondola, which gave us a view of Barron Falls from the other side of the gorge from the train.

Riding over the river. There had been lots of rain,
making the river the colour of coffee with double cream

View #2 from the Barron Falls Station

And once we were on the SkyRail once again, we had yet another view.

While we were at the Barron Falls station it started to rain, and we knew that the last part of the ride, over the highest point and providing the best view of the area, all the way out to the ocean and the Great Barrier Reef, would not be particularly scenic.  However, the experience of riding in a 6-person gondola car into the clouds and rain was quite interesting – a little surreal, actually.

Heading into the first wisp of cloud

Rene and Kathy in the car ahead of us

This was the best view on the downward leg
of the trip.

Once back down at the SkyRail Terminal, we spent a little time in the gift shop, something we don’t usually do, as it was still raining and our bus was stuck in a traffic jam on the road down from Kuranda. The bus did get back, sooner than we’d expected, with the driver complaining about people driving on the wrong side of the road and causing accidents, but carrying us safely back to the ship.

And then we were off for a couple of sea days starting with a sail through the reef to the tip of the Cape York Peninsula and across the Sea of Carpentaria, to next land at Darwin. We could only hope for nicer weather.