Clicketey – Click Twice       

 Our first tour was to the small town of Kuranda. As we rode along in the bus, the driver gave us some local knowledge of Cairins. Parts of the area actually flood to a meter high covering the roads and one park and school area in the rainy season. We have seen vehicles driving around with wide snorkle like tubes mounted on the edge of the front windshield. This will keep the engines from stalling as they go through the swollen water logged areas. The other interesting fact was about the houses built on stilts, in what is a flat region. Apparently when these homes were built in the early years, this was a form of air conditioning for the hot days. A lot are now being built in, making more living space to rent out to others.
 Arriving at our destination point the Freshwater Station,we boarded the Kuranda train, a 1720 Class diesel electric locomotive, with heritage style passenger cars for our seating, for our “First Clickety Click ” ride that took 90 minutes. The train travels through rainforest, scenes of the ocean, waterfalls, over bridges and 15 hand made tunnels. At one of the falls, on the winding track you can see the engine from the back which is where we rode. A stop at Baron Falls, revealed spectacular gorges and waterfalls, which produces the electricity for the area. Many lives were lost over the construction period due to accidents and sickness. The process to build a railway through this region began in 1882, looking for the route to final completion with the first train in 1891. The current station in Kuranda dates back to 1915 and is well maintained. After a short visit in the town, for local handicrafts and foods, we then boarded our bus for the Rainforest Station Nature Park.
Next was a hot cold barbeque buffet for lunch, then on to the Ducks for a informative trip through the rainforest by land and water accompanied by quite an entertaining guide. Most important was to keep the hands inside and DON”T TOUCH THE PLANTS. Some pretty nasty species in the rainforest. We saw many types of ferns, with names of Basket, Staghorn, Birdnests, Elkhorn. Interesting was seeing the termite nests and size they grew as they invaded a tree and ate the insides. One nasty plant is the Stinging Tree, with long thin close barb edged wired with tiny pink bulbs, that grow up and around the trees. It's a very painful sting and can last up to six months. Keep it dry not too bad, but once moistened the pain is much more severe...
After this we saw the Pamagirri Dance Troupe who performed different dances from several tribes of the North Queensland area. The music was by a wood block being struck and another playing the Didgeridoo. We then saw spear throwing, how to play a didgeridoo and boomerang throwing which Frank gave an unsuccessful try. Next was a visit to see some of the Australian Animals, crocodiles of quite assorted sizes, cute koalas, snuggled in their trees sleeping 20 hours a day and wallaby hopping about inter mixing with the tourists. A young one nibbled on my shoe.

 We climbed aboard our bus to be dropped at Clickety- Click 2, a cable car ride down 7.5 km to the bottom atop the rainforest with a stop to look at Baron Falls from another viewpoint. One could also see the Stinging trees at that height. 
 The weather was very fortunate with mostly cloud cover for this excursion, which makes it quite a lot more enjoyable. We are finding once we are back to the hotel, eating is not what we want to do. We haven't quite got our bodies changed over, meal wise.