Christmas Time in Cairns

Monday, December 25, 2017


Christmas in Cairns.  We were able to disembark the ship @ 2:00 PM and walked down the Boardwalk passing lots of restaurants and shops.  Not surprisingly, the shops that were open were mainly aimed at tourists, but it was fun to browse. 


Lovely sculptures (of course, Jeffrey had to greet them up-close and personal).

Jeffrey and his new friends

 
And some birds that were just browsing along the same as we were.

On the way back to the ship, we passed a tree that had 'something' in it that was making a lot of noise.  Surprise, Suprise - it was bats.  I've never seen a bat except in caves or at night, so this was an unusual sighting.

And we couldn't pass up taking a photo of the Post Office in its' Christmas finery.

Cairns Post Office on Christmas Day

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Another day docked in Cairns, but today we took the Karunda Scienic Railway up to Karunda (which is a tourist destination (mainly for entertainment - shops, animal and butterfly exhibits)).  . 

The Railway was built in the late 1800's into the early 1900's under very harsh conditions.  It was a 2 hour ride from Cairns to Karunda.

We enjoyed the ride with a lovely young couple from Brisbane (Chris and Olga (?hope I remembered that correctly) - he's originally from Sydney and she's originally from Russia - they met in Thailand and are getting married in 2018). 

The ride goes through a rainforest and the natural beauty was lovely.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's what the train looked like.

There was a 180 degree turn so we got to see the other end of the train from our train car.

After walking around Karunda for a while and enjoying the sites, we made our way to the SkyRail - a cable car that goes back down to the outskirts of Cairns.  It's an hour ride with a couple of brief stops.


Here's a lovely animal I saw as well as a beautiful waterfall (at one of the stops).

This photo doesn't do this waterfall any justice, but it was lovely!

The view from the SkyRail was magnificent since it goes just above the tree tops all the way own the mountain!

That's my Jeffrey



These cars each can take up to 6 passengers - we had a car to ourselves!

And, by the way, the cruise is wonderful - lots of new friends/acquaintances - delicious food (trying to walk a couple miles a day to keep off the pounds) - the crew can't do enough for us and I'm getting plenty of hugs to keep me going!