by Gertrude Baskerville (nee Stillman) about 1919
A description of the most enjoyable holiday Mother and I spent at Cairns and Kuranda
We left Townsville at midnight by the Wyandra, which is one of the best steamers to travel by.
No-one possessing the ordinary senses of a mortal could ever hope to describe adequately the beauty of the scenery between Townsville and Cairns. At best we can only stand off and look in awe at the island loveliness of the channels and passages.
It is not that these scenes are, after all, any more than blue expanses of water, dotted with emerald eyes of land. But the boat, sailing along like a thing of dreams through the intricate narrows and winding its way about the islands, with the mountains frowning splendour prehends. Long turquoise fingers of sea stretch through the islands; purple towers of mountains stoop down to meet them; and the boat moves magically. After passing more poems of loveliness in inlet and mountain, the ship steamed into Cairns.
Cairns nestles on the shores of her harbour:
A lazy pearl asleep at heavens’ feet;
A haunt of luxury, with ease replete.
Our relatives were at the wharf to meet us, and we then all motored through the town, out to their home where we were to stay. We had all the principal parts pointed out to us, and as we got further out of the town, the place was not so thickly populated, which gave it a nice countrified appearance. We spent a fortnight in Cairns, having a look all around, and after we had our full share of Cairns, we decided to take a trip up to Kuranda.
We were up at five o’clock in the morning to catch the train, as it left at 7 o’clock, and by 10 o’clock we were climbing the grandest chain of mountains we had ever seen.
We had seen the Blue Mountains of New South Wales and the Toowoomba Ranges but it was nothing compared with this. This was a train journey the like of which we had never experienced, for constantly did the scenes change on the line; and everything breathed an atmosphere of charm and enchantment to us. It was a journey by mountain, stream, sea and waterfall: nowhere else in Australia had we known such a combination.
The train seemed like a small insect crawling up the shoulders of a giant as we ascended higher and higher. Beneath us, hundreds of feet below, were great yawning chasms. Trees seemed by green pygmies, and about them and over them sometimes blue mists floated and sometimes clear sunshine. Further back, wide cultivated valleys stretched away into the distance, and there, dotted like specks of snow, was Cairns. Beyond it was a thin turquoise line leaping to an eternity of waters. That was the open sea.
It was as if we were looking from the window of a great castle across a continent which never ended.
‘Even New Zealand can show nothing like that great view of valley and hill, of chasm, of town and sea’, said some traveller, and there was no-one on the train who doubted him. For travellers on the northern line never become tired of this particular view. They go to Kuranda week after week, and will rush to the window at the curve of the line to catch this glimpse of Cairns. It comes more than once, and we who had never seen it before looked again and again.
We had scarcely appreciated all the beauty of it before the Stoney Creek Falls sang its song for us, rippling over on to the train as we passed, wetting us with its fine sweet spray. The galls dance over the rocks into the creek, which runs away hundreds of feet below us. The train swerves slowly and we get a good view of it.
Then come more valleys, deeper chasms, where fauna and satyrs and nymphs seem to move about airily and daintily. Banana trees and pawpaw fruit grow wild all over the hills, as if the place were so sweet and fresh the seeds must spring into plants.
Suddenly, from somewhere in the distance, came the faint call of waters. Louder and louder they called over the gorges and the valleys, the hills, the overshadowing mountains, the trees and the giant creepers. The train stopped at a little station, and the Barron Falls flashed into our minds, shutting out the littleness there by its marvel, its strength, its wonder. For a moment, no-one could speak. Tourists do not gush over the Barron Falls; they compel one to merely look and become silent before this wonderful work of Nature.
What a scene, even out of flood time, are the Barron Falls. Millions of gallons of snowy waters, frothing and bubbling, and tumbling and rumbling and thundering down the dark gorge to the depths below, where the forest waits with its green creepers and rich scents to welcome its mighty love.
So enraptured were we with the scene that when the train left the station before we could get anything like an adequate glimpse of the beauty, we determined that, once at Kuranda we should visit the falls first – which we did ad will never forget that sight that awaited us when we reached the bottom. We hurried down the myriad steps, but in some places we had to go very carefully on account of the spray from the falls which had been spread all over the hillside. Unless one reaches the foot of the falls, nothing of its greater wonder can be seen. From the swimming pool below, the scene beggars all description. The water is pre-eminent. It drowned out the sound of our voices, the rustle of leaves, the song of birds. There was nothing to be heard anywhere but that great exultant roar.
As one looks up to the falling torrents, it seems that Heaven is scattering armfuls of pearls and moonstones. The sun glints the water and one might imagine all the jewels of Paradise were pouring down that massive staircase.
The trees below appear to shiver in terror at the force of the waters, and as they creep up higher and higher to the blue sky it seems as if the sky had opened and yielded supremacy to the Barron Falls.
We paid a visit to the Fairyland Tea Gardens, which was delightful. Fairyland lies over the Barron River. You stand on one side of the river of rapids and cooee. The echo brings a or girl out of the enchanted land across the river who rows you over and helps you to morning tea in Fairyland. The walk through the scrub to Fairyland is delicious. You pass a gigantic fallen pine tree on the way, and the little guide informs you that the report of its death was heard distinctly in Cairns.
‘This was the mighty giant of the forest’, he tells you ‘and its brother is on the heights above the falls’.
The guide is a nature student and knows so well the calls of the birds that, of every exquisite natural song you hear in the woods he can tell you the name of the singer.
Then there are butterflies, orchids and flowers everywhere and no-one harms you for picking them unless the fairies have an eye on you.
We had morning tea, goat’s milk and scones as we sat in Fairyland listening to the birds, sniffing the wild delicious scents of the flowers and wishing the day would last forever.
We were taken for a walk around the banana groves and amongst the rainbow borders of crotons. We then returned to Kuranda across the swift river, with the faraway mountains looming over us and faint tingle of goat bells coming from the shores of Fairyland.
We stayed at Hunters Hotel while in Kuranda, which is a very up-to-date building, lit all through with electricity. We stayed five days at Kuranda, visiting all the beauty spots, going to a fresh place each day.
But that delicious holiday had to come to an end, and we once more boarded the train, and arrived back in Cairns.
We spent another week in Cairns, visiting the places we missed before, and then after spending a glorious month in the north, returned once again by the Paringa to Townsville. It was a very enjoyable holiday and we have several snaps taken to remind us of it in the future.
But we did not return alone: for back with us came the fragrance of the wonderland, the pungent smell of tropical scrub, the visionary glimpse of falls and hills and streams, the sight of wildflowers, the butterflies and the songs of birds.
With us returned rainbows of colour, anthems of sea and steam and cascades. The memory of all these things will linger forever.
