Day 57: Kuranda
Of course the sun starts to come out the day we are leaving Queensland! We had until late afternoon before we needed to be at the Cairns Airport, so we decided to spend the day at Kuranda, to make up for skipping it earlier in the week due to the decompression time from scuba.
Roadside stop for the biggest rockpile display we’ve seen yet
1,000+ tourists declare, “I was here!” with rocks
Kuranda is a bit of a jungle-Disneyland, with several zoo-like attractions, tons of souvenir stands, and the Skyrail Cableway & Scenic Railway rides to and from Cairns. However, we still had a few touristy things to cross off our list, so we embraced the kitsch of Kuranda and enjoyed ticking off the boxes. First stop was the Koala Gardens were we got to feed/pet more wallabies and – you guessed it! – cuddle a koala.
We will never get tired of petting zoos
Adorable wallabies!
Yoshi the koala was on shift, handed to one tourist after another for our 5-sec photo op.
The ranger places the koala in your arms, and you have to stand perfectly still to avoid spooking the animal. Each animal “works” for 30min max each day, replaced by another koala. Not quite as magical as I expected – especially since the koalas smell really bad – like fermented eucalyptus & poo.
After the Koala Gardens, we headed over to Bird World, where we finally got to see the cassowary! Another tourist gave us his feed bag as we entered, and we soon discovered why – all the birds are fed so much seeds, nuts and corn, they are extremely picky and it was hard to get rid of our feed. We found out that the cassowary has a very strict fruit & vegetable diet (they have a very gentle digestive system – which is why they are so important to the rainforest ecosystem: they poo out the seeds of plants they’ve eaten which helps spread seeds around the forest). Bird World had two cassowaries in their aviary – a male and female – and they are SO COOL. They seriously look like little dinosaurs. We spent a lot of time hanging around their habitat – totally worth the stop.
My dinosaur-bird! Actually, looks a bit like Kevin from “Up”…
Look at that face!
On our way out of Bird World, we tried to give away our feed bag, but all the tourists already had bags as well. We finally found a rainbow lorikeet willing to eat some of our nuts…until he got interested in eating our backpack! When we tried to get him off the bag, the little jerk bit us!
Not content to be handfed, this greedy little bugger went for the whole bag!
When Lindsay was feeding him, he decided he had enough nuts and tried to destroy our backpack – we can now verify this brand is lorikeet-proof!
We left the amusement park atmosphere of downtown Kuranda and took a stroll around the perimeter of town via the Jungle Walk. It was a peaceful little path that ran through some tropical forest, then along the river for a few kilometers.
Most tourists skip the Jungle Walk – it was nearly deserted compared to the gift shop area – but I guess most get a view of the river from the Rainforest Skyrail Cableway overhead
The path along the river was croc-free, and nicely shaded by a eucalyptus grove
After a quick picnic lunch in the town park, we drove out to the Baron Gorge National Park for a quick view of the waterfall before heading back to the Cairns Airport.
The Baron Gorge is a stop on the Kuranda Scenic Railway from Cairns to Kuranda
Short jungle walk to the Baron Gorge lookout
Catching up with Igor – eager to see if this gorge lives up to its name – now THIS is a proper gorge!