Kuranda

On our first day in Cairns, we took the day to go up to Kuranda, a small village in the middle of the rain forest.  In order to get there, we took the Skyrail, which has gondolas that take you up over the mountains.  There were two stops along the way, at Red Peak and Barron Falls.  At the first stop, we could go walk down the boardwalks through the rain forest and learn about the plants and animals that inhabit it from a guide.  At the second stop, we walked down to get excellent views of a huge waterfall.  After the two stops we continued on to Kuranda.

In the village, there are several markets as well as koala and bird sanctuaries and a butterfly garden.  However, instead of going to these expensive attractions, we decided to go on some of the walking paths they have around the village after going through the markets and eating lunch.  We went down by the river and walked through the rain forest for a while until we saw that one portion of the walk was blocked off.  At one point it did start to rain, which makes sense for a rain forest, but we were glad that we brought umbrellas.

After exploring the walking tracks for a couple hours, we made our way back through the village to the Skyrail and rode it back down to where we had began.