#cairns

My Cairns – Port Douglas Trip – April 2025 – Blog 4

Sightseeing

With most of my land sightseeing with the days left I decided to just use my rental car (East Coast Rentals) to see a bit of Cairns CBD area, 1hrs drive south & after finding some selected parking spots I did a few klms of walking along the shoreline of the marina and wherever my feet took me. Nothing was overly impressive, and the CBD crowd was hardly to be seen. I walked far more blocks than I thought I would, yet nothing really stood out. Not even a coffee shop caught my eye for a sit down. Rather depressing, considering what I have seen elsewhere. I enjoyed Port Douglas far better.

The realisation was hitting me of wasting valuable time, so I thought the next best was to drive back along the Captain Cook Hwy to Port Douglas & continue north to Mossman, a small village 16klms from the turnoff at Craiglie to Port Douglas. The Captain Cook Hwy takes a little longer than originally due to the stages of roadworks where it was severely damaged by Cyclone Jasper 2022. After the cyclone, this hwy was closed to Port Douglas so traffic had to go up via the Karanda Range that took 3.5hrs each way, so that’s how critical this highway is. That sort of detour is insane!

Upon arriving at Mossman, I wasn’t setup to see the wonderful Mossman Gorge even though they had a $15 shuttle bus on the route. It is a 40mins walk if you’re keen each way to avoid the shuttle, but time was really getting on & my calculations would have had me pushing to meet the closing time. I put all this down to an error on my part in poor planning, so I have to wear the failure. The Mossman Gorge is a total indigenous cultural region and they offer full guide walks & cultural centre. The village population is around the 250 mark & this is certainly the main attraction here.

I was very keen for an extra late lunch so decided to go back from the Gorge Reception to Mossman & found the wonderful Beechmont Cafe in the main street. What a great lunch & coffee & atmosphere .. they had a secret hideaway out the back too, which proved a great find. Thoroughly loved the food & coffee. Even sat there a while to soak it up & watch the wonderful staff doing a great job & constantly smiling. I even did my Google Maps review where it would further enhance their patronage.

With dusk not long away, I decided to venture back to the pool at my resort (Wyndham Port Douglas Resort). I caught up with my computer & Polarstep inputs (tour journey blogs), then pack & clean ready for tomorrow’s departure to return the rental car & shuttle to the airport for Brisbane Airport Train. East Coast has a great free shuttle service to the airport.

2/05/25 Up earlier then my alarm & started to do final packing & tidying the unit. I make sure the cleaners are rewarded by not really knowing anyone had stayed in the unit. It’s a way of brightening their day & they do such a great result on the unit when I arrived, so I try to reciprocate that feeling to them. The rain kept me awake most of the night & it will now get heavier for the week. Fantastic to have great weather for my week, truly blessed.

Saying my pleasant good-byes to the reception staff I headed off on a slow road trip down to Cairns (peak hour I guess & with 3 stages of red light-controlled roadworks) & returned my hire car in time & without any hassles at all. 5mins later I was on their airport shuttle. East Coast Rentals were great to deal with & the shuttle was excellent to the airport. So impressed & another addition to my Google Maps reviews.

My Virgin flight was right on time & 2hrs later I was in a colder, cloudy Brisbane & using the same airport train & another 1.5hrs I arrived at the end of the southern line, Varsity Lakes. While I was in Cairns Airport I set up my first ever Uber account using the pre-boarding time I had. So glad I did & it was so easy. I forced myself to use Uber, for my son Matt wasn’t able to pick me up living at Banora Point just across the border in New South Wales (NSW) from Queensland (QLD). With rain getting heavier my Uber arrived to fight the excessive peak hour M1 drive & suffice to say, arrived in pure darkness. Matt was happy I arrived safe & a great scotch followed.

Overlooking Cairns

The next day, reality hits hard with the restarting of the huge landscape project on Matt’s place. Concrete sleeper retaining walls along the side & front. I’ll be soooo happy when I finish this project. Very physical but relieved I can do this type of work at 69yrs old & the excavation was severely interrupted by a direct Cyclone Alfred which was not well received by myself, son – Matt & machine operator, David but we struggled through. The 64 concrete sleepers weighed 73kgs each & involved 21 galv posts concreted in 900mm/ 300mm dia piles, all dug by my faithful petrol post hole digger & myself.

I’ll end my last Cairns/ Port Douglas Blog #4 here & many thanks for reading them. Stay safe, happy & healthy. My next blogs will most likely be my first trip to Europe, starting at Rome, 43days long. 8 Countries, 9 planes trips, 7 trains & lots of walking.

My Cairns – Port Douglas Trip – April 2025

Blog 3 – Karanda Scenic Rail & SkyRail

Hello .. & you got your wish .. less typing & LOTS of photos. Enjoy!!!!

From my last blog I managed just a few minutes with the family that surprised me with a birthday muffin & scotch (thanked them again) & of course the Down Under Tours by Meagan was right on time at 7.50am at my Ramada Wyndham Resort Port Douglas & dropped off at Freshwater Station for the Karanda Scenic Rail. A historical rail line that involves 15 man-made tunnels by picks, mattocks & occasional dynamite, etc & 50+ cross bridges leading up the Karanda Range taking about 90mins. With Down Under Tours you can have a few options like, SkyRail first & come back by train using different time frames for return. I chose the train first & made a full day tour.

At the Freshwater Station, the Railways Workers Cottage sited here was relocated from Redlynch in 1984 & was amazing in its presentation with pressed metal ceilings & exposed stud work in the walls. Early Qld construction & not many people would really notice the construction details I have grown up with being in the construction industry all my life.

The rail line was established to meet the needs of the large gold rush where horse transport was inadequate up the mountain range but who would even envisage such a proposal in this steep range. I suppose gold will make man do amazing things. The rail line has a 1m rise:15m length steepness which is quite significant. The train engines from early 1950s or so are 1,000 horsepower engines & I suspect that is what is absolutely needed. 

Tunnel 15 (last tunnel) is the longest & took 2yrs to build & 4 workers injured delaying the project (Above photo). Workers then started to dig 8 tunnel faces simultaneously to catchup to the timeframe. Very hard work & most workers slept in tents & had to supply their own tools too. Some had families that camped with them as well. Tough times by all.

I had a Gold Upgrade ticket @ $325 that provided nibblies, beer, etc with 2 rail staff waitresses plus it incorporated the SkyRail ticket later in the day (cost included the pickup & drop off to my Port Douglas Resort .. 55mins each way) which was a bonus. 

The antique carriage was amazing with pressed metal ceilings & Spotted Gum hardwood interior. I sat with an aged, retired couple Ian & Janet from Canada. Ian took some sneaky photos of me when we disembarked for a few minutes so hopefully they contact me to swap photos. He was a professional photographer & he had a twitchy finger taking numerous photos. I suspect it would take him years to go through all is library photos.

The famous photo shot of the rail line is the Jungara Loop (below) where you can see a good length of the train doing the circular bridge climb over the metal bridge. A great bit of engineering & has your heart pumping knowing the height & span of this crossing.

The waterfall (above) appears in the centre of this trainline loop & continues falling under the bridging section. A few more minutes up the line the train stops at Stoney Creek Station & everyone can alight for 15mins to take photos of the magnificent Barron Falls adjacent of some force & 200m+ fall which is as old as the dinosaur era. This Barron River also has a hydro power installation. At the rear of the photo, you can see a viewing platform on the other side, so obviously there must be some method of getting to it. With the sight & sound of this huge waterfall & meeting a young Netherlands lady yesterday (Anouk) on our waterfalls tour I thought I would share my Barren Falls video with her & show her what I’m doing today on a much larger waterfall. OMG!! She immediately textd me back, stating she I was in carriage 12 & I was telling her I was in carriage 8. What are the chances of that? Such a coincidence!

Barron Falls
Hydro System

This Stoney Creek Station has the only bypass line setup to allow trains to cross each other on this single line network. Records show in 1944 (WW2) this line played a huge part; the station recorded 43 train crosses in a single day. WOW!!

With 90mins done, we were finally in Karanda at 350m above sea level where the station opened 1891 when the rail line was completed. The station is a 400m walk to the main street which has numerous shops, cafes, etc plus huge Strangler Fig trees within the main street. 

I was lucky to catchup with the Netherlands lady, Anouk for lunch (my shout) & we talked about a lot of subjects & then she had to run to meet her return train whereas I’ll be taking the SkyRail gondolas, later in the day.

In the main street (Coondoo St) there is a sign showing the direction & distances of the world’s major cities, some I’ve been to & other soon this October. In this township you can venture to Birdworld & Butterfly enclosures, Koalas Gardens, local markets where you could spend around 40mins each for around $20 or so. 

One of the gift shops in the main street has a small bird nesting off a chain in his roof awning. Such a sight to see & most people don’t notice it which is probably a safety factor for it. Nature is everywhere.

After a few hours meandering it was time for the SkyRail back to my starting point of Smithfield. The SkyRail is 7.5klms in length with Barron Falls 1.7klms from Karanda (3hrs walk by road) & 5.8klms from Barron Falls to Smithfield (sea level) via a changeover at Red Peak. 

I took a video & some photos after alighting at Barron Falls to the platform mentioned earlier to see the Barron Falls directly below over a glass floor platform. Yikes!! I sent this video to the Netherlands lady as she would have missed this closeness by only doing the train journey. She was thrilled to see my video. The bottom right photo above shows you the train in the distance.

Another stop to alight is Red Peak where you can do a quick platform walk loop to see the nature & flora/ fauna of the region like the huge 400yr old magnificent Qld Kauri tree (bottom photo below). In the tree tops you can see large ferns, etc creating large baskets & this is one area where Australia’s largest snake, the Scrub Python or real name, amethystine python, measuring up to 8m & weighing 25kgs. Another yikes!! Not a snake fan.

At Red Peak is where you change Gondolas for the line down to sea level/ Cairns direction.

From the SkyRail you come very close to the tree canopies & you’d be hard pressed to actually see the forest floor, such is the density. Truly a wonderous area. James Cameron used the SkyRail viewing to inspire the movie Avatar. The tree in question was quite different from the rest above the canopy & through admiring it I forgot to take a photo, so my apologies. Bummer!!

Alighting from the gondolas the crew take a photo which you can purchase at the adjacent gift shop. Now to wait for our tour pickup back to Port Douglas arriving at 6.15pm in the dark. The pickup was rather late so a couple of us were starting to worry, as the café, shop, etc was starting to close for the day.

Suffice to say, I managed a great restaurant meal at my resort, the started on my Polarstep blog & more red wine, gifted to me. Cheers. The next day (Wednesday, 30/04/25) I spent the day around the Wyndham Resort via the pool, relaxing after 2 full on days of nature. Caught up on my laundry duties & later in the day I have an Owner Sales Update session & then an Owner’s Meet & Greet Session where quite a few owners turned up for the drinks & nibblies & to share their life & travel stories. One person I did not want to see was the local ranger with his bloody python snake! Can’t I just have a moment without snakes? LOL!  

The next day, Thursday, I have another easy day & will use my MG rental car more on sightseeing, so I’ll end my Blog #3 here & many thanks for reading them. Stay safe, happy & healthy.