Jungle Adventure

Sebel Reef House Hotel, Palm Cove-  Today we headed out for a day trip to the small tourist town of Kuranda.  This town is high in the mountains within the rainforest.  There are a few ways to get to the town but we took a ride on the Kuranda Scenic Railway train.  The train winds up the mountains providing some amazing views of waterfalls including Barron Falls (see picture).  Our travel method for the return back down was on the Skyrail.  This takes you back down the mountain on a path high above the trees…definitely a much different view than from the chair lift at Nordic Mountain. 

In between the trips up and down we had time to walk around the town of Kuranda and go through the Koala Gardens (see picture) to see some Australian wildlife.  April managed to let a wallaby out of its enclosure and then people started feeding it so we just walked away…not kidding.  Luckily about 5 minutes later we saw an employee leading it back by its tail so I guess all was ok.  The town itself was pretty much just gift shops and small restaurants so we decided to take a jungle walk that we saw in the brochure…and that is where the adventure began.

Our first family photo :)

We headed out into the jungle on a poorly mapped out trail thinking it would take us 45 min to an hour tops to walk around and get back to town.  An hour and a half later, wet, bloody, tired, sweating…we were back. 

Our first problem was a branch laying over the path that was covered in sharp points…in a battle of Luke’s foot vs. sharp points the sharpness won and we were off to a rough start.  Our next obstacle was Jum Rum Creek which had flooded over the walking path.  We debated turning around but being as daring as we are we pushed through the nearly 1 inch of overflow to make the cross.  April commented that we were lucky not to lose any oxen during the 6 ft. voyage. 

Eventually we came to a fork in the path with one sign pointing back to town and the other continuing the Jungle Walk but also had a sign next to it saying Walking Track Closed.  Most people describe us as rebels so we had to live up to that reputation and ignore the non threatening sign.  It was probably a bad omen that 2 minutes into the path it began raining and about 5 minutes after that it started to rain heavily.  Conveniently for us we were in a rainforest so the canopy blocked some of the rainfall.  The whole walk we were a bit nervous because the sign did not say why the path was closed (you might assume it was because of flooding or a down bridge but don’t forget other theories like tigers or for any Lost fans out there…polar bears). 

We finally made it to a bridge and assumed this is where we would be forced to turn around but nothing blocking us so on we went.  The walking conditions on the other side of the bridge were muddy and slippery but at this point we had to keep going.  It did pay off as we ended up right next to the Barron River and saw some great views.  The river also ended up being the obstacle that forced us to turn around.  We didn’t mind battling Jum Rum Creek but neither of us were prepared to take on a full force river that was crossing our path. 

We thought we were safe as we were walking back on the path we had just come from but this jungle would not stop challenging us.  The final scare was a pheasant-like bird that flew up right in front of us.  Keep in mind the entire walk we had not seen any animals so we were not expecting to see anything let alone almost step on it before it flew up.  With our creative minds combined we decided to name it Jungle Pheasant. 

After picking up the pace we did eventually make it back to town but had learned some valuable lessons on our adventure.  The most important one being that just because a jungle path is paved and clearly marked…it doesn’t mean there isn’t danger around every corner!