Kuranda

On Saturday (September 15) we got up early to meet our bus for our Kuranda tour. Kuranda is a little community located on the Atherton Tableland in the rainforest. Our one-armed bus driver made one-armed driver jokes and told inappropriate stories for the 20-minute drive to the Kuranda Railway. We rode a vintage train up the mountain, stopping to look at waterfalls along the way. The railroad line was built by hand, largely by Italian, Irish, and Chinese day labourers. The station is in a town now called Redlynch. The town got its name courtesy of an Irish hiring boss known as Red Lynch. There were 37 bridges built, 15 tunnels hand dug, and approximately 35 deaths during the construction.

Kuranda is home to a variety of markets that sell local products and art. The Heritage Markets, those that originated as the first tourism draw, are decidedly very hippy in nature. Incense, patchouli, you get the picture. The more "modern" shops had more traditional tourist necessities such as stuffed cane toads, kangaroo paw bottle openers, and the ever popular kangaroo scrotum fashioned into a purse. The train was first built to get produce and timber to the coastal communities. Now it harvests tourists from the flatland and takes them to market.

In the village of Kuranda, there are also wildlife exhibits including Birdworld, Butterfly Sanctuary, and Koala Gardens. This wildlife sanctuary educates and raises money for habitat protection. One of the things I (Ann) was most looking forward to was the opportunity to see koalas up close. I was seduced by the cheesy tourist thing and paid to have my picture taken with a koala. We learned that the koalas were domesticated; they work only 30 minutes a day and have every 6^th day off according to a government code of practice. Later I was able to watch him eat leaves during his smoko. See a video here.

We also saw crocodiles, wallabies, kangaroos, lizards, snakes, and this very cool random spider.

A number of shops were selling ice cream but the most interesting flavors were at a cart manned by a gray-haired hippy-type. We waited in line as the ice cream man chatted up each customer. “Where are you from? Oh, I was there in ’75!” The Japanese customers were greeted in Japanese and some Japanese small talk. When we got to the cart, we were required to engage in the same series of questions. We told him we were from California but that we were living in Warrnambool. Ice cream man told us he was from Victoria but went away to the navy. He told us a story about how he met his wife, to whom he would be married 50 years next month. The coffee walnut flavor looked yummy, but I went for the coconut rough (chocolate coconut) and Andy ordered straight coconut. As we walked away, I told the growing line of people, “It’s not just ice cream, it’s an experience!”

Our trip back down the mountain was on a gondola ride. It was about 5 kilometers in total, with two stops to walk through some rainforest boardwalks. We had great views of the rainforest canopy, the city of Cairns, and the coastline. Here was our view above the rainforest.

Toward the end of the ride, we were intrigued by what looked like a water ski lake. It turns out it is called cable skiing – it’s basically boat-free skiing, though I think everyone who was there was wake boarding.

While waiting for our tour bus for our ride back to our hotel, I spotted a man with a UW cap. I asked him, “Are you a Badger?” He said, “Sort of. I got my Masters there.” During our brief conversation, I mentioned, “I loved living in Madison!” and he said, “Ah, I’ve had better…” Turns out he was there ’69-’71 and experienced his share of tear gas. Very different than my experience 30 years later. Fun to meet cheese heads halfway around the world.