July 19, 2007

Today we saw the rainforest! Having heard such wonderful things about it, we decided to sign up for a package to and from the rainforest village via train and skyrail. Good choice! First thing this morning we were picked up at our hotel and taken to the train station. The train followed the old train tracks that had been placed there by miners, with all of the tunnels dug by hand and all the bridges held together with rivets. There were beautiful views the entire way. It was funny, however, that we were told where all the perfect photo-ops were. The train made one stop on the way up to look over Barron Gorge Falls. The falls are naturally gushing, but thanks to the dam further upstream it is not as fast. It was still very beautiful. The falls had many levels to them, with pools and ponds in the rocks along the way down. The damn also provides hydroelectric power to Cairns.
We arrived at Karunda around 10:00. This is the “village in the rainforest” and is entirely set up for tourists. We signed up for a package that gave us entrance into the three wildlife areas. First we went to Bird World. This was basically one very large room with trees and water and many many birds flying around. For $2, you could get a bag of birdseed and peanuts and almonds to feed the birds with. A gimmick, but so cool! We walked around once first, which was nice because it was early enough that there were only one or two other people, so it was very quiet. There were an amazing selection of different sorts of parrots, many pigeon and dove varieties, as well as water birds, finches, and humming birds. We decided after one pass through the bird room to take out the seeds and feed some birds. The parrots were the only birds who were really interested in being fed, but they were a lot of fun! Rob and I both got little yellow and green parrots to land on our hands and eat, and Rob was surprised by a large red Macaw that landed on his shoulder. It was a very picky bird who only wanted almonds, and when offered anything else, would pick it up and throw it on the ground.

Next stop was the Koala Gardens. There was one itchy koala who kept stretching out to scratch, several sleepy koalas, and a mom and baby. Very cute. Apparently, their inactivity is due to a very slow metabolism that is adaptive to their low nutrient diet. And how could we pass up the opportunity to cuddle a koala? The koala they let us hold (for a small fee) was named Hogan, and was very interested in going back to sleep. He was also soft, though not as soft as the kangaroos that we were able to feed next. Only one of the wallabies was hungry, probably since people had been feeding them all day, but the kangaroos and wallabies were all lounging and completely ok with being petted. Except for the one wallaby who had a joey in her pouch – she stayed far away from everyone. She also kept her joey tucked in, but you could clearly see little feet kicking around in the pouch and occasionally caught a glimpse of ears or feet over the edge of her pouch.
We decided to see the last of the three wildlife experience areas before we got lunch and headed next into the Butterfly Sanctuary. This was another large enclosed room with plants and water and trails to walk through the room full of butterflies. It was pretty neat, and there are some beautifully colored butterflies here. There were also terrariums with caterpillars of each of the types of butterflies we had seen in the room, some with cocoons. Many of the butterflies here apparently have very spiney caterpillars.
We got lunch at the Trading Outpost, which was decent food if confusing. The people behind the counter were very busy and discombobulated over the vouchers that the tour groups had given people. After lunch we spent about an hour wandering through some more shops (of which there were many) and doing a little bit of shopping (or “retail therapy”). We had passed through some of the more interesting and unique crafts earlier in the day. Then we decided to do a short “jungle walk” before catching the skyrail back. However, we picked the wrong trail and ended up much farther away from the village than planned. This meant a very quick walk up the main road into the village. Turns out that there is quite the little residential area around the village – unexpected! We walked past a number of houses, the elementary school, and the Seventh Day Adventist Church. We made it back in time to catch the Skyrail back over the rainforest. It was a truly spectacular ride! There were moments when we skimmed the top of the trees, and other times when we were soaring above them. The glass all around the cart meant that we had 360 degree beautiful views of the mountain ranges. We also had clear views of the many epiphytes growing on a variety of trees. There were sounds of birds, but otherwise it was very quiet. There were two stops on the way. One was a view from the other side of Barron’s Gorge. The other was a small boardwalk with information about the trees nearby. The whole ride was spectacular! Tomorrow, perhaps we’ll go to the Great Barrier Reef.