Yue Yang
Yue Yang
Aug 24, 2017 · 15 min read

If you’ve chosen Cairns as your holiday destination, surely you’ve come to know the name Kuranda quite well during your research. If your interest in Cairns originated from the world-famous Great Barrier Reef, you’ve probably noticed after some research, that the rainforests in the Cairns region are just as popular as the famous Great Barrier Reef, providing tourists with a relaxing alternative to spend a ‘dry’ day in a world of earthly green instead of ocean blue.

Image Credit: Monica Yang

Kuranda rainforest is located much closer to Cairns City comparing to the other option Daintree rainforest.

Image Credit: Google Image

So naturally, a visit to Kuranda would be perfect for someone who prefer to sleep in a bit more, and come back to Cairns with plenty of time left to do some shopping before strolling along the Esplanade to enjoy the amazing serenity of the harbour-side sunset. After all, Cairns city itself deserves your time to appreciate all it has to offer!

Tours in Cairns are never short of options, same is true for Kuranda, it’s hard to make a choice sometimes. A quick and easy way to pick up a brochure amongst zillion of others, is to go for the cutest one. Obviously GTS (Global Travel Services) knows the ‘cute power’ of koala bears!

Aside from standing out in the ‘cute’ category, this Kuranda tour provided by GTS is considered to be one of great value at $130 for it’s most popular TRAIN UP/SKYRAIL BACK option. And that is the option I’ve chosen to spent my day on August 16th, 2017.


There’re quite a few different options under GTS’ Kuranda tours. You might find it quite confusing at first, as I did too. However it becomes clear shortly. Especially after the crystal-clear explanation of our bus driver for the day, Stu.

The BUS UP/BUS BACK option is the fastest, but doesn’t provide the full scenic experience as the train or Skyrail does. Therefore TRAIN UP/SKYRAIL BACK becomes the most popular option, for you can appreciate Kuranda rainforest from two different perspectives along the way. However even though the bus mentioned before won’t carry me throughout my entire journey, it provides me the transport service from my Cairns accommodation to Freshwater Heritage Train Station in the morning, and from Smithfield Skyrail Station back to accommodation in the afternoon.


My booking confirmation suggested me to wait for the bus pick-up at 8:25. Sure enough, Stu the bus driver turned up right on time. Turned out I was the first guest to be picked up. After a few more stops, we officially departed from Cairns city for Freshwater Heritage Train Station. Stu made a very good first impression as a driver/tour guide. He’s a jolly conversationalist. Even during the uneventful time of picking up guests, he could make everyone feel welcomed and entertained. He told me that he himself has done quite some travelling, including 10 years living in Japan. And yes, he speaks fluent Japanese!

Stu the driver/guide

As soon as each guest hopped on the bus, Stu would hand out the itinerary for the day along with the official map of Kuranda village. Afterwards he’ll give another detailed description himself through the broadcast again, making sure everybody understands what to do, where to go, and at what time.

Multi-lingual itinerary

Our bus arrived at the train station around 9:30, leaving plenty of time for Stu to pick up our train tickets and for everybody to have a cup of morning coffee from the train station cafe and/or a toilet break before the train ride. The train station itself is an attraction. Everything around you takes you back to a simpler and more peaceful time. Your mind will be slowed down, prepared to fully enjoy the escape into the rainforest and the little village of Kuranda.

Retro ticket office
Everywhere you can see why this train station is called “Heritage Train Station”.
Order a coffee and/or muffin to wake yourself up.
It sure IS!
A little history behind the station

The little brochure of Kuranda Scenic Railway would tell you the history behind the station, the cultural meaning behind the Buda-Dji patterned locomotive, and the various iconic stops along the way. This brochure, like all the other ones provided throughout the day, also come in different languages.

At 9:45 the train arrived on the platform.

The Scenic Railway brochure tells the hidden cultural story behind these patterns.

We each found our numbered seating before it departed 10 minutes later. I was lucky to have gotten a window seat.

The plain wooden material is something you don’t get to see much nowadays.

This is a selfie of me and Joanne, a lovely friend I made later on in this trip! She’s from the US and has been traveling around the world after quiting her job a year ago. At this point however, she’s still just ‘anonymous lady waving at my camera’.

Not until the train turned did I realize how long it actually is!
Trying to capture the endless depth of the rainforest we passed through.
We passed by quite a few lookouts like this along the train ride.
Raising these bridges from deep gorges up into thin air, marvelous project!
[ Stoney Creek ]

But don’t worry if you don’t, because when passing great scenic spots, people would move around their seats, taking turns to take photos. The train would run for about 1.5 hours, covering 65km, passing through 15 tunnels along the way and cutting 93 corners. Yes you’re right, it’s not running at the speed of 21st Century, which made me all the more impressed when I travelled pass the tunnels, marveling at how people in the old age dug through the mountains with primitive tools. You can just picture the hardship they must have gone through!

Passing through one of the tunnels, as dark as night outside.

The broadcast inside the compartment is continually telling stories about the history and scenery along the journey. However for the most part, I couldn’t make out the words as the sound of this old train overshadowed them. I just sat back and enjoy the intermittent rainforest and magnificent gorge outside my window. Don’t worry that you’ll miss any gorgeous scenic spots if you doze off, because everybody around you would make a commotion jumping to the window in a flash at that time.

Our enjoyable journey is kept safe by these hard-working maintainence workers.

10 minutes before arriving at Kuranda, the train would stop at Barron Falls. Why stopping here? Because:

The photo cannot capture the full grandeur of the Barron Gorge.
This is actually a good chance for you to have a close look at Buda-Dji.

After a further 10-minute ride, the train finally arrived at Kuranda Train Station at 11:30.

I’m already stepping into a world of green!
The conjunction point between compartments.
Sneak-peaking into upper-class compartment.

My free time to explore Kuranda begins!

Having all my time to myself also means I need some idea of where I’m going. On the train, I’ve read through the Kuranda map Stu gave me earlier. It showcases everything in Kuranda in a very organized way which makes planning my time much easier. Markets, jewellery, food, art and craft, every little gem is mapped out with a brief introduction to each shop.

Before plunging into the street of Kuranda however, I went straight from the exit of train station to the Skyrail station, to pick up my ticket for 2pm. The reason is that Skyrail tends to get busier in the afternoon, which means you may spend 15 minutes in queue.

With Skyrail ticket safe in my pocket, I joined others strolling along the main street of Kuranda, Coondoo Street. As I’ve got ticket for all 3 of the wildlife parks in Kuranda village (Birdworld, Koala Gardens and Butterfly Sanctuary), I needed to plan my time wisely. My priority is to leave enough time for the 3 parks and at least one of Kuranda’s markets. After roughly dividing up my 2.5 hour free time in Kuranda, I decided to resist the temptation to wander into the art galleries or various shops, because I assumed the market would be a larger gathering place of art and craft.

Right at the entrance to the village is the famous Kuranda Hotel.
The shaded walkway towards the village’s main street.
No high-rise, no heavy traffic.
All the directions you’ll ever need in Kuranda is here.
This little Australian village is definitely NOT short of international dining options.
If I had more time in the village, I’d love to explore every one of these quaint little galleries!
More information if needed.
Try and see if it REALLY IS the №1 Gelato in Cairns!

Only a few minutes strolling down the main street brought me to the 2 major markets in Kuranda: Kuranda Heritage Markets and Original Kuranda Rainforest Markets. They’re located close to each other, and at the north end of the village.

Because I’m planning to visit Koala Gardens, I headed for Heritage Markets since Koala Gardens is situated inside this markets.

Koala Gardens and Birdworld are owned by the same company, which is why the reception at Koala Gardens gave me ticket for Birdworld as well. I was expecting to see only koala in Koala Gardens, however the map tells me otherwise.

Koala Gardens is actually a zoo holding various kinds of animals.

It took me a few seconds to realize why are people pointing their cameras towards here. The crocodiles were almost the same colour as the ground, plus they’re absolutely still the whole time. They almost look as unreal as the fake crocodile in displayed in this shop.

Koalas were even harder to find, because they’re always hidden amongst the branches, and they’re too lazy to move most of the time!

However Koala Gardens offers tourists a chance to hold a koala in their arms and a photo taken of this memorable moment. The photo booth was the busiest spot in the Gardens.

In comparison, wombats and wallabies are outside the centre of spotlight. They were just chilling in their own personal space, however they’re also quite used to tourists, meaning they won’t run away if you tried to approach them. Especially the wallabies, they’re roaming around completely open space.

The leaf is only for getting his attention, not for feeding!

No flashlight in the Nocturnal House.
Seeing the olive python slithering along his cage raised goose bumps all over me!

Upon finishing the full circle at the house of nocturnal animals and reptiles, I left Koala Gardens and headed for Birdworld which is just next door.

Just as the name suggested, it’s indeed a WORLD of BIRDS! Birds and human share this common space so intimately. Every direction I looked there’re birds in all the colours you can think of!

You can look up in the birds’ directory provided, to learn more about them. The famous Australian cassowary is definitely one not to be missed!

Cassowary stands up to about 1.8m when its neck fully raised!

I would love to spend more time spotting out every kind of bird hidden amongst the woods, however I need to leave enough time for visiting Butterfly Sanctuary and walking back to Skyrail Station.

Butterfly Sanctuary holds 1500 to 2000 butterflies. However as they’re small and moves so fast, it’s hard to capture them in your camera. Looking with your own eyes itself should already be an amazing experience. The unusual size and vibrant colour of these butterflies is something I’ve never seen else where before.

If you’re lucky, you might get one landing right on your finger!

I was just in time to hear a guided tour starting at 1:15PM, which would last about 30 minutes. The tour mainly explained how butterflies ‘eat and breed’.

These are the little eggs they laid.
The lab displays every single stage of a butterfly’s growth.
Under the microscope

After the guided tour, there’s not much time left before I had to head straight back to Skyrail Station. However I just couldn’t resist taking some shots of these gorgeous tiny creatures while they graciously hold still for my camera.

The guide explained to us about the purpose behind this specially designed canopy.
A gallery of butterflies!

Hastily said goodbye to the butterflies, I walked back along the same street I came up, I made it to the Skyrail Station right on time at 2 o’clock.

The Skyrail gondola comes at 15 seconds interval. The staff would ask you how many of you are traveling together to make sure your group can stay together.

Joanne and I sat in the same one of course. She’s extremely afraid of height, and started to hyperventilate as soon as the gondola starts moving.

What I thought of as breathtaking scenery, scared her out of her normal self. The Skyrail is very safe of course, so rationally speaking, there’s nothing to be afraid of. However this kind of phobia isn’t something we can rationally control! In the end, she tried to take photos to distract herself.

We’re passing through the same river and forest as the train, however Skyrail gives you a completely different perspective.

While I wonder what’s hidden amongst the woods, all Joanne can think of is “Please don’t let me drop!”

Hey look who’s here! The train!

As you can see from the photo above, we’re approaching one of the 2 stopovers along the entire gondola ride.

At each stop, we could walk around for 10–15 minutes.

There’re very nice lookouts very close to the stop, very worth hopping off and have a walk around.

However you do need to make sure that you’re hopping onto the right direction of gondola, as we almost failed to! That’ll be a good way to miss our bus pick-up at Smithfield Station!

The scenery from one of the lookouts.

An ingenious idea from the Skyrail people! People would surely share this photo on their social media! They’ve got both Instagram and Wechat frame!

There’s even a short boardwalk. You can walk along and marvel at for instance this gigantic Kauri tree with its smooth and absolutely straight trunk.


Back into the gondola bubble.

We got a panoramic view of Cairns as we got closer to the city.

Bless her, she’s still terrified!

At the bottom of the Skyrail is Smithfield Skyrail Station, with a gift shop. There’re quite a lot of interesting idea of merging Kuranda elements into merchandise.

After a short time shopping around, Stu arrived at Smithfield Station to pick us up.

One hotel after another, he dropped us off our individual accommodation. Telling us little trivia about the buildings as we drove along streets in Cairns City, things like the story behind the hugely delayed aquarium that's finally due to open in a few days.

Everybody said farewell to Stu and to each other, thanking him for this enjoyable day.

As the first to be picked up and last to be dropped off, my day was the longest in the group. But even so, it was not tiring at all. I arrived at my place at around 4pm.

Also because my day was divided up into active time and sitting back and enjoy, so it was neither too quiet or too exhausting.

I had a great time, absolutely!

If you also want to have a chilled day escaping into the little township nestled in rainforest, book one for yourself!

Better still! You can package this Kuranda day-tour together with a cruisey day to the Great Barrier Reef. Get this perfect Cairns tour package and enjoy the best of both worlds!

)
Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade