Day 360 | Some Cairns backpacker: it's got bike parking

46 km | zzOz total: 10,010 km

First culture shock in Atherton, now turning up in Kuranda and reacquainting myself with civilisation is all a bit much after all that time out there somewhere somewhat remote.

Kuranda is a major tourist trap sitting up on the edge of the Tablelands connected to the tourist flow by the old railway that I was perched above yesterday and now also a gondolier style Skyway.

Just for old times’s sake, I came up on the railway once years ago, I wandered down to the overly vegetated railway station and watched one of the rickety old, let’s call them historic, trains disgorge the latest day’s horde of adventure seekers, they appear in all shapes and sizes from XL to 6XL, dazed and confused by the profusion of tropical jungle along the streets. There’s a heap to do up here, a butterfly house, tropical aviary, koalas and roos, venomous snakes, etc, but I’m put off by finding the cost of the railway excursion is now $48, and due to the policies of the National Park through which the tracks traverse where no leaves are allowed to be trimmed, views other than said leaves are now a thing of the past.

The most popular activity here is of course the tourist mainstay: shopping. There’s a lot of T shirts, colourful candies, squishible leather hats, weak coffees and doughnuts, Tarot or horoscopes, various miracle lotions, low cost gems, etc, and plenty wandering around with multiple shopping bags.

It’s all good preparation for the swarm of tourist activity that I now remember that Cairns is all about.

The ride down the cliff is OK, I’ve hitched up the back brake once again, it was the steep climb up from the Barron River to the ridge top that was the killer, racing between the short sections of overtaking lanes and wider bits of road, at times it’s no shoulder territory with a barricade of a crash barrier, trying to avoid the bolus of tailgating 4WDs behind each overwrought tourist camper van or gravel laden B-double truck, ie, a big one.

Suddenly I’m down on the Esplanade, the flow of vehicles replaced by a wide stream of joggers and general promenaders along the boardwalk, tourists who sense they should be out there doing something at this legendary destination for those from the other side of the world, not being to take in the experience of the cacophonous parrots coming in to roost in the palm trees in their 1000s on one side and the blood red sunset on the other.

I’ve made it to the Pacific Ocean but as is the strange case here for such a destination the tide is way out and instead of a white sandy beach of expectation there’s a huge expanse of solid grey mud flat.

There’ll be a few days of ocean as I head north in a week’s time.