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Australasia
Cruising to PNG - Cairns & Kuranda
Written by Richard_McKieArticle Index
Cairns
After a brief reconnoitre of the city it seemed to be quite familiar - perhaps after travelling. There's something somehow familiar to Australian towns and cities - probably the people.
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Cairns - it feels very Australian
After a coffee and a drink we decided to visit Kuranda by the Skyrail. Wendy had been to Kuranda before but not by Skyrail. An adventure.
Kuranda Skyrail
At 7.5-kilometre (4.7 mi) the Kuranda Skyrail was the longest gondola cableway in the world when it was completed in 1995. It's like a very long ski lift except the towers are extremely high, like television towers so that the gondolas are well over the forest canopy. The ground, when it can be seen at all, is about ten storeys below. I imagine it's not a good choice for someone uncomfortable with heights.
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Kuranda Skyrail
The tropical rainforest below is among the oldest in the world, significantly older than the Amazonian forest - well that's Australia for you.
Once reached, Kuranda is a pretty village almost entirely given over to tourism. I bought a kangaroo leather bush hat - identical to the one that's been several times around the world and is now getting a bit shabby (see elsewhere on this website).
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Kuranda
Wendy previously visited by train. These days one can take the Skyrail one way and the conventional train the other but we didn't think we had the time - or did we?
Back on the Skyrail we got off at the last stop to have a closer look at the falls. Big mistake - or was it?
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Kuranda Falls - not Niagara but apparently better than during the drought - more than a trickle.
The last leg on the cable car is the highest and a thunderstorm was on its way. Just as we approached an empty car everything was shut down.
We had booked it ourselves to be back on board to sail at 3.30 - surely they wouldn't go without us? Yes they will we were told: "They take your bags off and leave them on the dock". Thankfully there were people on ship-sponsored tours trapped along with us. Phew!
In the end it would have been OK - the ship was experiencing never identified problems leaving Cairns - was it the tide or motor bearings - or software? No one would say.
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Technical difficulties?
Tugs hovered around us for three hours - then suddenly we were off - and soon up to top speed, 22.4 knots, to catch up.