Kuranda Scenic Railway
Heritage rail journey climbing through rainforest gorge past waterfalls and hand-cut tunnels.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Kuranda Scenic Railway in Cairns turns on a single dinner: an eighteen ninety banquet the contractor staged on the still-unfinished Stoney Creek Bridge for a visiting governor-general, suspended above the gorge on timber falsework. It follows the very different table set below, in the navvy camps of Irish and Italian labourers who cut the line's fifteen tunnels by hand, and the two dozen hotels that sprang up to keep them going. You will hear who paid for the toast, and who never got one.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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