Karunda

After saying good-bye to Uluru, we flew to Cairns.  It was much cooler there!  :)  We arrived to our hotel at dusk, went to our room, opened the balcony door and discovered the bats flying very low overhead.  But that's another story!

The first evening, we walked around and familiarized ourselves with  the local dive gear shops were as we were on the hunt for stinger suits.  It is box jelly season here and that is one animal you DON'T want to be stung by.

But I digress again...on to Karunda!

Friday morning, we went to the Freshwater station and boarded the Karunda Scenic Rail train for our trip up into the mountains following the Barron River through Barron Gorge.  Karunda is a mountain village that has lots of shops and beautiful views.  Unfortunately, we had rain and low clouds most of the day and the pictures are somewhat dreary.  Well...except the ones from the butterfly sanctuary!


These are the brightly painted Karunda Rail engines.  The weather truly dulled the colors and the picture does not do them justice.    This was taken from our passenger car as the train was going around a curve.

On a clear day, there would be blue water in the distance...the Coral Sea.  The town of Freshwater is in the foreground.

Example of the rock they had to dig through to make the 15 tunnels.  The project started in 1886 and finished in 1891. At one point, the longest tunnel had 8 different sections under construction at the same time.  Amazingly, they all matched up at the end. 

 Barron River overflow.  During the rainy season, the water comes over the top of the overflow faster than it can be let out through the gates.

 Barron Falls from the west side of the Gorge...at the bottom there is a power generating plant.

We had about 4 hours to spend in Karunda and one of the places we went was the Butterfly Sanctuary.  I have no idea what types of butterflies these are, but they are some of the better pictures we took.

Lunching butterflies.

 Pools at the Barron Falls.  Picture taken from the East side of the Gorge.

Barron Falls from the East side.  The train tracks and viewing platform on the West side of the Barron Gorge are visible in the upper left portion of the picture.

Our return trip to Cairns from Karunda was via the Sky Rail.  It is the longest cableway I have ever been on at 4.7 miles in length.  The steepest grade is 19 degrees. And of course, they had technical difficulties while we were on it and it stopped and started several times when we were over the Barron River / Barron Gorge at approximately 133ft above water.  There we were, swinging in the breeze / rain.  We did see some cockatoos but the weather had declined enough we didn't get any pictures.  I was glad to get back to freshwater.  It would be good to go back and do on a clear day!

As we were chatting with a local after arriving back into town, she pointed out some black cockatoos with the red tail feathers.  Once again though, the wild birds did not cooperate and I didn't get a picture.  

On to the Great Barrier Reef!