Today was my FAVORITE day of the entire trip! This little bus picked us up at our Hotel & took us to the SkyRail. It was about a 20 minute drive out of the city (including the multiple stops we took picking up others). The drive was gorgeous & gave us a chance to see the Cairns that was beyond our walking self-guided tours.
The SkyRail is kind of like a really, really long ski lift. You get into these little pods (they reminded me of the toboggans that used to go over Disneyland) & they take you up & over & through the rainforest, mountains & gorges. It was pretty amazing! Here is a view of Cairns & the valley below from the Sky Rail.
The ride on the Sky Rail took about an hour. There were a few stops along the way. One stop was a great walk through the rainforest.
And the other was an amazing view of Barron Falls.
The final stop on the Sky Rail was Kuranda, a small mountain town that had once been overrun with hippies, and that is now full of shops, cafes, & Zoos. We were ready for a morning snack, & decided we had to get a Meat Pie. A fav of Jeff's from his last trip to Australia. They're basically like pot-pies, a pastry filled with various things. This was meat, peas, carrots & tomatoes with mashed potatoes & BBQ sauce on top. It was pretty tasty!
We decided to go to the mini-zoo. It was cheap & gave us a chance to see all the Aussie favorites, up close & personal. You could walk right in & feed the Wallabies & Kangaroos. This little wallaby was my fav!
You could also cuddle & take a pic w/ a Koala for an extra fee, I decided to just snap a few shots of my own. These used to be my all time fav animals when I was young! They still are one of my favorites!
They had a ton of freshwater crocs. This one was staring me down from the moment I walked in the park. He looked hungry.
After the Zoo we decided to grab some lunch before we did some shopping. We went to a little cafe. They had fresh squeezed juices & I couldn't help myself! I got a Pineapple-Apple-Mint juice & it was the best thing I've ever had! The sandwiches we ordered were also divine!
We did a some more shopping after lunch, and then had to catch our train back down the mountain. The rains came in & we got soaked on the way back to the station, but it was fun! It felt part of the entire RAINforest experience. On the way back down we got another amazing view of Barron Falls from the other side of the gorge. They've built a dam that lessens the amount of water that comes over the falls now, back in the day it was really impressive! (I think it still is)
The train trip back down was so relaxing! The view were amazing! We had the time of our life! Jeff looked so natural in the train! He mentioned that perhaps his true calling in life was to be a train conductor (I think he was born a century to late for that).
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