Theresa: We decided to try something new tonight and made reservations for dinner at the Cairns Wildlife Safari Reserve. The brochure said we would dine amongst the lions and then tour the zoo by torch.
During the day Clint and I decided to visit Kuranda known for its tropical rainforest as well as the famous Barron Gorge waterfall. We went hiking through several rainforests in Australia, but I could tell the difference once we entered this one. All the other rainforests were in cooler climates, so we couldn’t really see or hear too many animals. When we entered the Kuranda rainforest, I instantly heard rustling in the trees and could see birds flying around. Our hike eventually lead us to the Barron Gorge waterfall. The waterfall just looked like a small stream of water because it was the dry tropical season. In the wet season, the water would be pounding down the mountain into the river. Still, it was a beautiful sight! We went to the Kuranda Village and strolled through their famous marketplace with hand-made crafts from the villagers.
From Kuranda, we drove to Mareeba which was known as the city where the rainforest meets the outback. It was pretty quiet and uneventful in Mareeba as we drove around the city square. We decided to try the Granite Gorge walking tracks and that’s when our adventures began! First, Clint got pulled over for running a stop sign at a railroad crossing. The crazy thing here is that there are no bars at the crossing, some crossings have yield signs, and others (apparently this one) had a stop sign. Oops! We tried to play the “we’re tourists, forgive us,” but it didn’t work. Oh well…
Clint: After the coppers got done beating me down (not really, they were very nice), we found the bumpy dirt road to the Gorge and the Hyundai Getz was all over the place. As an added challenge, we lost GPS signal on this road (this seemed to happen frequently in Australia esp in the evening; I guess the satellites are all in the Northern Hemisphere) so were forced to navigate by map. Not sure if you know it, but reading maps/directions is not my wife's strong point. The Getz was our first manual tranmission car and driving one of those is even lower on her proficiency list. Bu
t we did find the Gorge just before sun down, and it was worth it. For those of you in Georgia, it was similar to Stone Mountain, though wider and less tall. It had wallabies all over it and they would eat out of my hand (and bite it once when there were several around). We did a loop around the Gorge and there were several sections that were steep and required some rock climbing to get through.
We then navigated to the Wildlife Safari Reserve (only stopping to ask for directions once). It was quite dark by the time we arrived, and there was very little lighting at the Reserve to guide us. Dinner was first and we literally ate amongst the lions. They were on either side of us with a pack of males on one side within 5 feet of us and the 15 lion pride on the other. The full pride was not present when we arrived, but while eating they were released for their dinner of horse which was hung in the trees right next to us. It was intimidating to look up and see a dozen or so lionesses galloping up for their dinner and they were hungry.
During the day Clint and I decided to visit Kuranda known for its tropical rainforest as well as the famous Barron Gorge waterfall. We went hiking through several rainforests in Australia, but I could tell the difference once we entered this one. All the other rainforests were in cooler climates, so we couldn’t really see or hear too many animals. When we entered the Kuranda rainforest, I instantly heard rustling in the trees and could see birds flying around. Our hike eventually lead us to the Barron Gorge waterfall. The waterfall just looked like a small stream of water because it was the dry tropical season. In the wet season, the water would be pounding down the mountain into the river. Still, it was a beautiful sight! We went to the Kuranda Village and strolled through their famous marketplace with hand-made crafts from the villagers.From Kuranda, we drove to Mareeba which was known as the city where the rainforest meets the outback. It was pretty quiet and uneventful in Mareeba as we drove around the city square. We decided to try the Granite Gorge walking tracks and that’s when our adventures began! First, Clint got pulled over for running a stop sign at a railroad crossing. The crazy thing here is that there are no bars at the crossing, some crossings have yield signs, and others (apparently this one) had a stop sign. Oops! We tried to play the “we’re tourists, forgive us,” but it didn’t work. Oh well…
Clint: After the coppers got done beating me down (not really, they were very nice), we found the bumpy dirt road to the Gorge and the Hyundai Getz was all over the place. As an added challenge, we lost GPS signal on this road (this seemed to happen frequently in Australia esp in the evening; I guess the satellites are all in the Northern Hemisphere) so were forced to navigate by map. Not sure if you know it, but reading maps/directions is not my wife's strong point. The Getz was our first manual tranmission car and driving one of those is even lower on her proficiency list. Bu
t we did find the Gorge just before sun down, and it was worth it. For those of you in Georgia, it was similar to Stone Mountain, though wider and less tall. It had wallabies all over it and they would eat out of my hand (and bite it once when there were several around). We did a loop around the Gorge and there were several sections that were steep and required some rock climbing to get through.
We then navigated to the Wildlife Safari Reserve (only stopping to ask for directions once). It was quite dark by the time we arrived, and there was very little lighting at the Reserve to guide us. Dinner was first and we literally ate amongst the lions. They were on either side of us with a pack of males on one side within 5 feet of us and the 15 lion pride on the other. The full pride was not present when we arrived, but while eating they were released for their dinner of horse which was hung in the trees right next to us. It was intimidating to look up and see a dozen or so lionesses galloping up for their dinner and they were hungry.
After a great dinner, we headed on our night tour of the Reserve (apparently "torches" in Australia are flashlights :P ). It started a bit frantic because while we were walking out, some of the dingoes had gotten out of their pen and were following us. It was very dark so they were quite close before someone noticed, but the guide assured us they were friendly, though we did find a chicken they had killed later on the tour. We saw bears, a cheetah, and had a close visit with the rhino, who was perturbed at being awoken and grunted when we touched him and then sprayed us before tramping back into the woods. We stopped by a section where 2 lions could be touched (though the video shows he was a little fiesty) since they were hand raised. They also had a tiger and 3 other lions from the main pride in the "Sin bin" for bad behavior.
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