Rain Forest
July 14 2002
After a great day on the reef we spent a day in the rain forest.
Well some was over the forest and some was in. We rode up to the
town of Kuranda on the Skyrail. This is a six mile ride in a gondola
over the rain forest. With 1.2 million visitors a year the impact
on the rain forest is almost minimal when we all soar just above the tree
tops. The view is incredible. There are two stops along the
ride. At the first stop we joined a nature walk and a ranger showed
us what the plants of the rain forest are. This educational stop
made the rest of the ride much more fun, now that we know what we were
looking at. Kim was the ride attendant at the second stop.
She was fascinated with Cactus Jack as she had never seen a rubber cactus
before. I sprang into action and captured her amazement and confusion.
Along our ride we had incredible views of the forest canopy, the waterfall,
the river, the city, and the sky. After lunch we boarded the Kuranda
Scenic Railway for the ride down. LLowel tried to help model the
cactus and we began the ride down. There were a few sharp curves
along to road bed and we could see the engine. The engine is painted
up with the artwork of two aboriginal snakes. The red sign at the
bottom was behind the emergency brake cable inside our train car.
We thought the penalty would be worth it.
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