Our next destination was Cairns, which is a good 4 hours drive from Townsville. It was our next homebase for a day trip to Kurunda. We decided to skip Mission Beach, which we thought we would cover on our way back down. The drive north takes you along endless fields of sugar cane. Harvesting season – according to local traffic signs – is from May through December. At least that’s when you have to watch out for hauling trucks. About two thirds up to Cairns, we took a right turn towards the beach. The word was there are occasionally Cassowaries on the beach. – Yeah, I hear you. I thought exactly the same. What a fib.

Etty Beach

The satnav took us to Etty Beach. To our very surprise, the town of Etty Beach was not at the beach at all. It took us rerouting the GPS to the Etty Beach caravan park via a windy road to get us to the beach. Slowly approaching with the car and joking about all of the Cassowary signs – we never saw a Koala on the street, where the signs said Koalas crossing – we didn’t believe our eyes, when we saw them.

Unfortunately, the weather took a sudden turn and I go soaked returning to our car, which was just about hundred meters away. Good time to leave and finally head to Cairns.

Cairns

We stayed in Cairns for two nights and used it as a homebase for a day trip to Kurunda. The city offers a very well developed beach with its own lagoon-sized pools and plenty of BBQing spots, restaurants and other amenities. It’s definitely worth a stroll in the evening. Close to the beach a colony of flying foxes made some large trees their home. The noise and smell is quite particular, but nevertheless worth experiencing.

Kurunda

The next day we got up at 5:30am to make the 8:30am departure of the historic Kurunda Scenic Railway. Our original plan to take the train up to Kurunda, the Skyrail down and up again, and then finally the train down back again to Cairns, wasn’t feasible. Hence we opted for a package tour: We took the train up to Kurunda, strolled the town for a few hours, then rode the Skyrail down to Smithfield Terminal to take a bus back to Cairns.

Kurunda offers a lot to see for the few hours you got on that round trip. We decided for a stroll on the town’s Coondoo street, explore one of the photo galleries, visit the butterfly farm and then grab late lunch at one of the many tiny eateries in the Kurunda Rainforest Market.