Just before Cyclone Jasper swept in to wreak havoc on Far North Queensland (FNQ) I took the superb Spirit of Queensland train from Brisbane to Cairns.

The Spirit is a comfortable train offering two classes of accommodation for the twenty-five hour and 1681 kilometre journey:  the less expensive option is a reclining chair and access to the Club Car for snacks and drinks.  The better way to travel is in the RailBed cars where the very comfortable airline-style chairs are magically transformed by railway staff at night into full-length lie-flat beds with fluffy pillows and crisp duvets.

The RailBed cars offer complimentary meals and wines – all quite pleasant if not quite good enough to earn any Michelin stars – but probably good enough to earn a few Gordon Bloody Ramsey pithy epithets and cusses.  The beds are – for me – not quite long enough and not quite wide enough, but will probably give most people a very comfortable night’s sleep, peeping out the windows at the spectacular Glass House Mountains, the tiny cane trains carrying chopped sugar cane to the mills (see featured image LEFT) along the way, and the flocks of tiny birds accompanying assorted cattle as they graze on water flats along the way

Trains and (boats) and planes

It is faster – and cheaper – to fly to Cairns, but for those who enjoy rail travel, the Spirit is a comfortable way to go.  A single economy airfare Brisbane to Cairns is about AU$150.00 and a full-fare RailBed seat about $400.00, but there are various concessionary fares that bring the cost down significantly.

This fare includes three meals – I had a roast beef with Yorkshire pudding for dinner – and the complimentary “Wine in a Glass” wines served with the meal were sufficiently far from toenail fungus remover lotions.

Cairns

Cairns is a bustling and pleasant small city of about 160,000 people. 

I first visited this town in the 1970s and can remember little more than mosquito-plagued mudflats edging the quaint old town.  The mud flats are still there but so are ocean-side swimming lagoons, marinas, play parks, boardwalks, a casino, tons of restaurants, bars, fast food places, a few quirky markets … and most accommodation options these days offer guests mosquito screens and air conditioning.

On this occasion I stayed at the modest Cascade Gardens in Lake Street, just a block from the Cairns Esplanade, where a one-bedroom studio suite with private garden cost just under $400 for three nights.  My suite had a full kitchen, a laundry, an outdoor garden sitting area next to the swimming pool – and a huge fluffy cat that seemed to dwell in and dominate the reception area.

• Oh – I do love cats!  Especially large, fluffy ones …

Skyrail

A complimentary shuttle bus meets passengers at various hotels in the city and takes them twenty minutes or so to the lower terminal of the brilliant Skyrail Rainforest Cableway where for AU$117.00 per adult one can enjoy the return shuttle bus, and the return “flight” over the rain forest to Kuranda and back again.

Imagine a gondola lugging enthusiastic skiers up the side of Mont Blanc, dropping them at the peak to schuss and traverse and jump their way down again.  Then imagine a gondola smoothly lifting explorers above pristine tropical rainforests, above trees festooned with the nests of migrating birds, passing striking waterfalls and swooping up and down over the Barron River until it reaches Kuranda about eight kilometres later:  this is Skyrail.

The Skyrail was built in 1995, using helicopters to transfer hundreds of tonnes of concrete and steel into the untouched forests between Cairns and Kuranda:  no roads or tracks were carved out of the forest so what we see today is still, essentially, untouched UNESCO-listed tropical rainforest.

Mighty trees, giant kauri trees, magnificent epiphytes such as Elk or Stag Horn ferns and Birds’ Nests ferns cling determinedly to their long-suffering hosts, a few sulphur crested cockatoos are dotted among the trees just to disturb the utter tranquillity of the area:  this is what a traveller experiences on the gondola ride to the top.

There is a stop en route to Kuranda. Travellers can continue to the top or alight there to explore the 2019-built Edge Lookout rainforest walkway and see the mighty – or the sad – Barron River Falls.

When I visited, the rainy season had yet to arrive.

Just a few short days later Tropical Cyclone Jasper arrived.

The cyclone caused enormous damage, knocking out tens of thousands of homes’ power supplies, cutting off roads to the north to Port Douglas, dumping tens of thousands of litres of waters into local waterways and bringing flooding to wide areas.  The two photos – BEFORE and AFTER cyclone tell it all.

Kuranda

The small town of Kuranda is the end of the trail for the gondola – and also for the delightful and historic Kuranda railway that trips and turns on its way up the hills from Cairns to one of the prettiest and most floral of railways stations I have ever found … and where the fresh scones and cream and jam are really obligatory for all visitors:  My diet starts tomorrow!

There are a couple of pubs in the village.  The Barron Falls pub seems to be the noisier, with signs demanding:

• No drunkenness
• No swearing
• No humbug

… and threatening a one-month ban for any patron found guilty of humbuggery.

I popped into the pub and called, in my best Charles Dickensian voice:

• Bah! Humbug!

… but no-one came to toss me back onto the streets …

The other – the Kuranda Hotel – was established in 1880 and features a host of antiques as well as outdoor dining options where visitors can chow down on their (quite good) pub food while watching the comings and goings of locals and visitors in the street below or licking ice creams from the local shops or hunting for bargains in the local markets.

I spotted a couple of young First Nation boys playing their didgeridoos outside some tourist shops but was even more excited to see a drooping green claw-shaped flower or orchid in a tree near the railway station.

In Thailand we had an almost identical flower, but it was bright golden red. I have now found that the Thai flower’s name is Macuna benettii … or perhaps Novo-Guineensis … but its FNQ cousin is the Flaming Jade … or New Guinea Creeper or Morning Eye Candy or …

• Whatever its name and wherever it grows – it is a beauty!

Great Barrier Reef

I believe that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made artefact that can be spotted from outer space, although with CIA technology and AI yumbobodgily, I guess just about anything is these days discernible from outer space … or from the top of that building just over there …

• Yes!  Mrs Smythers!  I am watching you! 
• Please pull up your bikini top …

But the Great Barrier Reef, at about 2300 kilometres (or the same distance from Vancouver down to the USA-Mexican border) is also visible from space and is – largely – a truly natural phenomenon.  It suffers from global warming, from natural nasties such as the Crown of Thorns starfish, and from mindless tourists in their search for the perfect Selfie image who trample on the living critters that build the reef.

I took the excellent AU$240.00 Down Under Evolution cruise out to the outer reef – sea-sick tablets available on demand – and visited two different diving sites.  The staff attention to safety was superb with head counts conducted after every stop and with every person allocated diving gear or snorkelling gear according to their deep-water ability.

For my first dive – on Norman Reef – I wore a full-body stinger suit as marine stingers (potentially fatal jelly fish) can be found in these waters at the time I was leaping into water … and telling all the nasties to stay away.

The boat offered a superb lunchtime buffet – grilled prawns and steaks, fish fillets, pasta, salads and complimentary wines (see above – for quality). But when you are out at sea and when Moby Dick can strike at any time and when Portuguese Men of War can drag you down to visit Davey Jones’ locker – who really cares what the wine really tastes like?

I perched on an upper deck to nibble on my prawns … and watched in amazement as a chap nearby polished off two huge steaks, an armada of prawns, three bakeries of garlic bread, two silos of salad … and then jumped back into his swimming gear for the next dive site.

• I think he might still be there … providing nourishment for several generations of reef fish and helping to rebuild the carol reef …

Hastings Reef was a prettier dive site and I enjoyed popping up and down amid the fish and whatever else there was there, but as I did not have an underwater camera with me, the following day I visited the excellent Cairns Aquarium, just down the road  from my hotel.

Cairns Aquarium

OK – I confess – my underwater photographs on the Great Barrier Reef were actually taken at the Cairns Aquarium.

I am not usually a great fan of animals kept in captivity, but the Cairns aquarium has an excellent rehabilitation program for several endangered species, and there are informative tours given by enthusiastic young guides.  There are creek and river systems displayed with their local inhabitants merrily soaking up the sunshine. Swamps, mangroves, coral reefs, billabongs and rainforests are also featured.

There is also a twilight tour offered when night-feeding sharks and sting rays and other monsters can be seen – but I did not return after the sun set:  my vampire duties were calling me …

And more bad weather

Since my visit, not only has Jasper damaged this magnificent area, but Cyclone Kirrily has swept through, dumping tonnes of water throughout the whole of the NW areas of the State, but also bringing much-needed waters to the parched interior areas of Queensland.

In Brisbane there have been no more floods – but plenty of steamy hot days – and my great wish to be back on the reef diving with the fish … and perhaps enjoying some charcoal-grilled barramundi for dinner … with a GOOD glass of wine … or two.

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Journey November 2023

Text and photographs © Christopher Hall February 2024

Location map and * images from the Internet

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In my blogs I try to present a snapshot of the places I have discovered during a brief visit.   I am not trying to present a detailed picture of the whole city or the whole region or the whole country.

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If a man ascended into heaven and gazed upon the whole workings of the universe and the beauty of the stars, the marvellous sight would give him no joy if he had to keep it to himself. And yet, if only there had been someone to describe the spectacle to, it would have filled him with delight.

• Attributed to Marcus Tullius Cicero – On Friendship

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