Cairns

I had dinner that night at an Indonesian place recommended on the Internet. This is ayam bakar, grilled chicken, which was quite decent.

It was a 20 minute walk there as it was at the far end of the esplanade.

The esplanade on the way back. It was raining by then.

Cairns has a public outdoor swimming pool, The Lagoon.

Most of these pictures are actually from the evening before, hence the inconsistency in dusk light.

Well for sure there won't be any crocs or stingers in the lagoon.

View down the coast.

Pelicans waiting off the esplanade on a sand bar. Maybe they get fed around this time.

A little later at the lagoon.

There are some sculptures at the head of the lagoon.

The buildings facing the esplanade.

One of them houses the night markets, which consists of a food court and stalls selling tourist stuff.

One final shot on the morning of departure, of the Cairns Central Shopping Centre. The railway station is at the other side and is accessed by going up one floor, crossing the car park and going down again. It's due to having to cross the rails.

And that was the end of my short break in TNQ. It was a well-filled 5 days. I'm done with the Great Barrier Reef, snorkelling and reefs in general, so I doubt if I'll be in this part of the world ever again.

Skyrail

It was raining again when I took the Skyrail down as you can see from the raindrops on the cars.

It wasn't any use trying to take pictures out of the car as the camera wanted to focus on the raindrops, and I couldn't figure out how to override that. Anyway the landscape was dull and dreary.

The first stop was Barron Falls and we got out to take the walking loop.

We got to see the falls from the other side.

There are a few pieces of historical machinery exhibited.

At Red Peak station, not only did we have to get off, but the cars on the final segment were in a different loop.

On the walking loop I only took one picture, of this rainforest giant.

We reached the terminus, Smithfield, well in advance of the pickup time of the transfer bus. Some people browsed the gift shop.

The bus took me back to Cairns Hostel and that was the end of the Kuranda day excursion.

Kuranda railway and Birdworld

After being dropped off at the hostel, I went to get dinner in Cairns CBD. I'll merge those photos with the next evening, so this post will be about the Kuranda excursion by heritage rail and cable car.

Sharp on 0830 the train pulled out of Cairns Central Station and headed north, picking up more passengers at the Freshwater station.

The views of the lowlands got better as we gained altitude.

This is at the 180° hairpin bend where it's possible to see one of the ends of the train.

And on the outside of the loop, there are falls on the rock face.

The recent rains would have helped.

At the Barron Falls station, the train stopped to allow passengers to disembark and take photos of the falls. We got more views in the afternoon, from the other side, from the Skyrail.

The many carriages were packed. It's a popular ride.

More selfies before continuing.

The Kuranda terminus shop.

The station.

It's about 100m walk to the town centre, such as it is. It was raining so the rain poncho came in handy. Fortunately it wasn't as cold as I feared so I didn't miss having long jeans and a jacket. It was just drippy.

A funny T-shirt I spotted in a shop. Everybody I've shown it to chuckled. Sigh, I've been doing it wrong all these years. :)

I had a brunch of bratwurst, sauerkraut, bread and salad at the German café.

Seeing as it was raining, I decided to see Birdworld. Maybe they might have a cassowary. The macaws had a lot of personality.

Black cockatoo. This one's a native.

Blue and gold macaw to be more specific.

Sun conure.

This wasn't on the spotter's sheet they gave us.

Possibly a bar shouldered dove, a native.

Possibly an eclectus parrot, also a native.

Macaw again.

Eclectus parrots again.

An Indian ringneck getting some seeds.

Whistling ducks, natives.

A familiar native, the rainbow lorikeet.

Intermediate egret, a native.

More whistling ducks.

The pond in the aviary.

At last, the cassowary.

They had two, this is the second one in an adjoining pen.

Mandarin duck. This was the only pose I could capture.

Pied heron, a native, looking a bit bedraggled.

Buff banded rail, a native, which preferred to walk around on the ground.

Another eclectus.

A pair of native king parrots.

Getting a feed.

Helping itself.

Doesn't seem to be on the spotter's sheet.

A pair of them.

Also not on the sheet.

Nor this.

Rainbow lorikeets again.

Perhaps a king parrot.

A Raja shelduck walking the grounds.

That yellow.

One of the smaller birds in the aviary.

Possibly a sun conure.

The macaws liked to groom each other and play beak games.

They liked ruffling each other's feathers.

Torres strait pigeons at the feeding dish.

Coy Raja shelduck.

Looks like a small galah.

Alexandrine parrot.

Finally, a couple of black cockatoos.

The spotter's sheet is here if you want to try to identify ones that you see. First the non-natives.

Then the natives.

After that enjoyable hour, I had a late lunch in the restaurant.

This is the village open markets with souvenirs and similar for sale inside.

The Kuranda Hotel, rather forlorn that day. It would have provided many a drink in its day.

The entrance to the station. I however descended by Skyrail from the adjoining station. Those pictures will be in the next post.