Big Trip

Today we took a trip up on the Skyrail to Kuranda, but not before we'd been to the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park It wasn't our best experience, as it was full of teenage students. We were somewhat herded from one exhibit to the next, and nothing was covered in very much detail, although the initial History Theatre presentation covering white man's unjust treatment of aboriginal people didn't pull any punches. The didge demonstration didn't tell us anything we didn't already know, and we should have skipped in and gone to the boomerang & spear throwing demonstrations instead. We had time for a very quick attempt at throwing boomerangs: Max & Erin did well, but only my third attempt came back. As we were leaving the field I heard the teacher saying to the person behind us, "Hurry up. If you're quick you've got three live ones...".
Then we had to dash off as our skyrail tickets were timed. From Skyrail, we had some cool views of the rainforest from the cable car above the canopy. We stopped off along the way for a quick guided tour round the forest by a guide with a very strange sense of humour. It might have been more informative if he hadn't been so busy playing up to the three giggling american female tourists in the party, but it wasn't too bad, and was over pretty quickly.
At the next stop we looked out over Barron Falls. The gorge there is incredibly steep-sided, but I was surprised at how little water there was coming over the falls, given how wide it was. When we went on with the cable car journey, we saw the reason - there's a dam further up which is regulating the flow.
Kuranda was pleasant, but very touristy, which was what we'd been led to expect. We had time for lunch and a gentle mooch, but not much else apart from the obligatory ice creams before it was time to meet up with our guide & go down to the station to catch the Kuranda Scenic Railway back down to near sea level. A nice ride in old-fashioned carriages with old-fashioned air conditioning (i.e. all the windows open). Stony Creek bridge (photo) is an obvious highlight. You can't see the waterfall on the other side of the train in this photo, unfortunately. Not a bad day out, but all was a bit rushed, getting from one attraction to the next.