Kuranda is a small town surrounded by rainforest on the Atherton Plateau, 25 kilometres from Cairns. The town has a population of only 650 people.
For more than 10,000 years this area has been home to the Aboriginal Djabugay people. Today you can visit their village, watch Indigenous Australians sing and dance, or how they make fire by friction, and learn to throw spears and boomerangs yourself.
The first Europeans did not arrive here until the 19th century. The area where Kuranda is now located was settled by "whites" in 1885 and thoroughly explored in 1888 by Thomas Behan. Construction of the famous railway from Cairns to Mayola, and later to Herberton, began in 1887, and by 1891 the road passed through Kuranda. The present railway station building was constructed in 1915.
In the early 20th century, coffee was grown on the plantations surrounding Kuranda, but then logging became the town's main industry for many years. In the 1960s a hydroelectric power station was built in the Barron Gorge. Throughout the 1960s and 70s Kuranda was a popular destination for Australian hippies and environmentalists, and today it is a thriving tourist resort. Thousands of tourists travel here every week from Cairns on the scenic old railway, which winds through tunnels and gorges past waterfalls and vertiginous cliffs. Another way into Kuranda is via the Skyrail cable car.
Kuranda is home to northern Queensland's only zoo, housing big cats and ungulates. It is also home to a bird park, a butterfly sanctuary, a bat rehabilitation centre and a sanctuary that is home to koalas. Also in Kuranda you can visit the many handicrafts and artists' stalls selling handmade souvenirs. The town used to be home to an unusual dance theatre of the local Tjapukai tribe, which is now located in the nearby town of Karavonika. As mentioned above, Kurnada is surrounded by a rainforest with amazing wildlife, which can be viewed from one of the many hiking trails or from viewpoints such as Barron Falls.
