Kuranda Scenic Railway

"This tour took us first to the Kuranda Scenic Railway, a train originally put in at very great effort to assist in mining. It winds its way up the mountain with some spectacular views of waterfals, rainforest, and, in the distance, Cairns itself. Pretty, but a slow trip. At the end of it we reached the town of Kuranda, whose reason to exist is plain and simply to be a tourist trap. To my surprise, however, it's actually quite nice, with a lot of really nice crafts and even decent food." - Larry the O mlog

Redlynch

The town was named for Red Lynch, a railroad supervisor in the early years of the Kuranda Railway.

Views from the Kuranda Scenic Railway

Barron's Falls

About 102.5 miles long, the Barron River flows over the 853-foot-high Barron Falls, forming steep, narrow Barron Gorge. Much of the water that used to flow over the falls has now been diverted to generate electricity at the Barron Gorge Hydroelectric Power Station.

We saw Barron's Falls from a couple of dramatically different viewpoints here and at a stop along the Scenic Skyway. I couldn't get a good shot of the entire falls, so I took a sequence of photos from top to bottom (top row, L to R). The train is shown at the overlook where I took the photos of the falls.

View of the Skyway from the Railway

Kuranda Scenic Skyway

"From Kuranda, we took the Skyway, which is a cable car affair that travels over the rainforest canopy, all the way up one side of a mountain and back down the other. The whole ride is several kilometers long, with three places you can get off and walk to lookout points. It was really spectacular looking down on the rainforest from overhead, and coming down the mountain gave amazing panoramic views of Cairns, Port Douglass, and the barrier reef." - Larry the O mlog

Bird's Eye View of the Rainforest

Barron Falls Skyway Stop		The Barron River

Approaching Cairns

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