Skyrail and the Scenic Railway: The Two Ways Up to Kuranda

The Kuranda Scenic Railway, the heritage railway that the Queensland colonial government built through the rainforest of the Barron Gorge in 1891 and that the engineering achievement of the tunnels, the bridges, and the curves through the escarpment that the railway negotiates from Cairns to the Atherton Tablelands represent as one of the most spectacular and the most celebrated heritage railway journeys in Australia, provides the Cairns visitor with the historic railway experience through the World Heritage listed Wet Tropics rainforest that the steam and the diesel railway technology that the railway's heritage rolling stock demonstrates in the daily tourist services that the Cairns to Kuranda train runs. The 34-kilometre journey from Cairns Central Station through the rainforest gorge to the Kuranda station at the top of the escarpment passes the Barron Falls overlook, the 250-metre waterfall that the railway was built to provide power for through the hydroelectric scheme that the Barron River's descent from the Tablelands creates, and the 15 tunnels and the 37 bridges that the escarpment topography required for the railway alignment to climb from sea level to the Tablelands.

The Skyrail Rainforest Cableway, the 7.5-kilometre gondola cableway that spans the Barron Gorge National Park rainforest canopy from the Smithfield base station to the Kuranda terminal in the world's longest gondola cableway over a rainforest, provides the aerial perspective on the World Heritage rainforest that the cableway gondola creates for the visitor who rises above the canopy in the enclosed gondola and sees the rainforest from the bird's eye view that no forest walk can replicate. The Skyrail's mid-stations at Barron Falls and at Red Peak, the points where the gondola pauses for the guests to disembark and walk the short nature boardwalks that interpret the rainforest and view the Barron Falls from the National Park lookout, create the immersive rainforest experience that the aerial perspective of the gondola combines with the ground-level boardwalk experience in the dual perspective that the Skyrail experience provides.

The Kuranda village at the top of the escarpment, the small tourism town that the Scenic Railway and the Skyrail deposit their visitors into for the market, the wildlife attractions, and the Indigenous cultural experiences that sustain the Kuranda visitor economy as the day excursion destination from Cairns, provides the tourism village character of the boutique stalls, the artisan craft, and the wildlife encounters that the Kuranda markets and the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary, the Birdworld, and the Kuranda Koala Gardens create as the destination that the two premium transport experiences deliver the visitor to. The Kuranda Markets, the colourful and eclectic market that fills the market building in the centre of Kuranda and that the artisan craft, the tropical fruits, and the tropical clothing that the stall holders create and sell to the market visitors who arrive on the Scenic Railway and the Skyrail in the morning peak of the daily visitor flow, provide the commerce that sustains the Kuranda economy as the market town at the top of the Cairns escarpment.

The combination journey, using the Scenic Railway one way and the Skyrail the other to experience both the heritage railway and the cableway in the round trip that the majority of the Cairns day visitors choose as the complete Kuranda experience, provides the tourism product that the Kuranda Scenic Railway and the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway market together as the premium Cairns day excursion. The combination journey's popularity, sustaining the high patronage of both the railway and the cableway and the Kuranda village economy that the visitor flow creates, reflects the complementary nature of the two transport experiences that offer the different perspectives on the same World Heritage landscape in the combination that creates more value than either alone.

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