Kuranda

Wednesday, 7 August 2013


After a cold Monday night (the temperature did drop to 13 degrees!), Tuesday morning was just glorious, so we decided on a trip to Kuranda Village. After the slow, windy trip up the range, we discovered that at 10.20 am, we were about the only tourists in Kuranda. Everyone else arrives after 10.30 am, when the first train arrives. With not many people about, we entered the Bird Park for our first visit. Of course, we had to buy the obligatory bag of bird feed (it’s wonderful how tourists actually pay for the feeding of wildlife in these places), which actually contained more peanuts in shells, grapes and fresh corn cob than bird seed. Needless to say, some of the parrots, and macaws in particular, were just waiting to pounce as we walked in! One macaw took a particular liking to the button on top of Les’ cap, but we weren’t willing to hang about for a couple of days to recover it.

Our next stop was at the Butterfly House, still as beautiful and wonderful as ever. If only the Ulysses and Cairns birdwing butterflies could be trained to sit still with their wings open … Following lunch, we convinced each other that we should have our faces sketched by the local busking artist – caricatures, actually. Not bad! As we returned to our car parked near the station, having looked in most of the shops on the way, we decided that Kuranda is still a nice place to visit and shop for souvenirs, but nothing has really changed in the last few years – neither have the souvenirs. Cat nearly got us into trouble when he attempted to ride a Harley Davidson parked in the street. We very quickly removed him from the handlebars while having quick glances over our shoulders.

Tuesday night was our usual bowls night, but we weren’t as successful this week.

Another cold night (12 degrees, getting worse!) also meant another beautiful day, probably the hottest and driest we have had so far. The morning was spent “at home,” apart from a short walk to the river to feed the fish, followed by a visit from the postman with a package of mail from home. This afternoon, we visited the Information Centre, looking for attractions to suit Shan when she visits, then had a stroll along the Esplanade, looked at the mud and ate an ice cream.