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Along the Path of Buda-djiBy Lucinda Bromfield
And so we hopped happily aboard, pausing only to admire the wrought iron gates that frame the doorway. The brightly painted wooden carriages come from the Sunshine Express – the train that ran on the railway in the 1930’s – but the engine is modern rolling stock. The engines are painted by aborigine artists from the local Djabugay tribe to depict the story of Buda-dji. The Story of Buda-jiBuda-ji is one of the most important creation ancestors of the Bama Aborigines. Creation ancestors are magical animals that lived in the Dreamtime – the beginning of everything. In his true form he is the rainbow serpent who lives in the sea at Double Island, but one day he came ashore in the form of a carpet snake {Buda-ji} to trade Nautilus shells for dilly bags and eel traps from the table land Bama. On one of his trips three greedy birdmen ambushed him near Barron Falls, and chopped him into pieces and scattered those pieces through out the land. Wherever a piece fell became an important Bama landmark - the Scenic Express travels through most of these landmarks - along the path Buda-dji took to make his trading trips.
The first thing I notice about the moving train was that it is very noisy - if you sit near the join of any carriage the commentary will be obliterated by the racket. If you want advance warnings about the best time to rush to the windows for photographs this would be a shame, but if you just like the sensation of traveling by train the squeaking and trundling adds to the fun. As well as photo timing the commentary also provides information about everything that you pass that could possibly be of interest to you - including graveyards and the main road from Cairns to Brisbane!
Nor was all the danger confined to the building of the track - in 1973 masked bandits held up a train as it transferred wages to the remote Tablelands. They escaped on trail bikes and have never been caught despite the best efforts of Australian justice. Of course, nowadays you don’t need to worry about malaria, rock fall or bandits – instead you can take a wonderfully relaxing journey where your biggest concern will be taking the perfect photo. |
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TM
It takes 1 hour and 41 minutes to travel from Cairns to
Kuranda and every minute of the journey is enjoyable. Admittedly, I love trains.
It is the only civilized way to travel - no crush, no road rage, no sea or
motion sickness and, in the case of the Kuranda Scenic Railway, glorious vistas
at every turn of the track.
Many people take the train purely for the views - and hop
straight back on the train {or the sky rail - a cable car through the
rainforest} after a brief cup of coffee and a quick shop in Kuranda's tourist
markets We were coming up for a few days, and were faintly apprehensive about
our back packs having been told that large luggage was frowned upon. Not so - no
sooner had the brightly painted wooden carriages pulled into the station than we
were assisted to the baggage car -
by
smiling and cooperative staff.
An extended story of Budaji along with a map, brief history
of the railway and map marking out significant landmarks of the journey is given
to us with our tickets in a handy tourist keepsake pack. Conveniently, it folds
up pocket size and I promptly put it in a pocket and forget all about it. We're
too busy examining the interior of the carriages. They all have natural air
conditioning - that is, all the windows are open. - and lovely wooden bench
seats up holstered with red leather. Despite looking quite spartan they are
remarkably comfortable. The carriages have a wide walk way, and full water
coolers at the end - incase of a sudden thirst. You can't get food on the train,
but there are a couple of kiosks in the station and you are advised to stock up
before hand if you fancy a nibble. There are also a couple of TV screens
unobtrusively set above the right hand windows. These screens flash up written
safety messages and archive pictures to go with the commentary. At least I'm
told they did - I was looking at the amazing views...
So, toasted sandwiches in hand we settled into our seats
and with a clang and a squeak were off. Word to the wise here - everything
happens on the right hand side of the train, so when reserving seats make sure
you get right hand ones! 
Luckily,
the commentary stops struggling for things to say the minute the train pulls out
of the Cairns suburbs and heads into the jungle. The amazing views speak for
themselves - deep valleys of lush vegetation spotted with brightly colored
flowers roll past, giving way to inspiring views across the plains of Lake
Placid to the coral sea. On a clear day you can even see Green Island on the
horizon. There was a light drizzle on the day we traveled but even then the
views were spectacular. 
The official highlight of the trip is the amazing Stony
Creek Falls bridge. Completed in 1890 the iron lattice construction allows the
train to cling round the edge of the falls high above the valley below. In the wet season, the waterfall actually comes in through the train windows.
Supported on three trestle piers the crossing doesn’t feel remotely precarious
- quite a feat considering the height and the terrain. But the best part for me
came with the ten-minute stop at Baron Falls Gorge. The Stoney Creek Bridge is
much-touted - Baron Falls Gorge came as a marvelous surprise. The train stops
at the Baron Falls station {complete with a forest of viewing platforms} for 10
minutes. Water plummets from three separate peaks into the gorge below,
congregating into a number of vivid green lakes on the way down to the tree
lined gorge bottom. The 'ooos' and 'ahhs' of my fellow passengers made
me wonder what level of noise they'd have been able to muster had the falls been
in full flow...
The other truly astonishing thing was the amazing
engineering that went into the 35km of track. The rough terrain made the work
onerous and slow - in 1882 when the explorer Christie Palmerston {with his Bama
mate Pompo} was engaged to find a route for the railway many people said it
couldn't be done. It took them two years of exploration to come up with a
suitable route - the route the train still follows today. The track took
twenty-five years to complete from Cairns to Atherton- though only a fraction of
that track is traveled today. On that fraction are 15 hand-carved tunnels for
which the concrete was imported from England, transferred to mules and walked up
along the cliff face to the worksites. The work was hard, dangerous and in some
cases, deadly. Malaria and injuries killed many of the navvies working the track
and it is rumored that their bodies lie buried in the track’s foundations –
conditions were too hostile and the men too exhausted to try and dig graves
elsewhere No-one is quite sure of the final death toll - at the completion of
the second and most dangerous section of the track $1,400 of workers wages and
benefits were left unclaimed - a fortune in today’s money.