To Kuranda

So we're heading back to Sydney today, back home.

But we've still got time to pack it in, so we left Port Douglas at a quarter past eight and headed back up the Captain Cook Highway to board the Skyrail to Kuranda, a little market town up on the Atherton Tablelands above Cairns.

Now the usual route for this trip is up from Cairns Central station on the Kuranda railway, a rickety old train weaving its way up a hand-built narrow gauge railway through the Barron Gorge National Park, returning later in the day on the Skyrail, a system of cable cars linking Kuranda with a site at Smithfield, north of Cairns.

The railway journey is lovely, the best part about it being the views, followed closely by the sound of "Waltzing Matilda" piped through the carriages as you trundle your way through the weatherboard Queenslanders on the outskirts of Cairns; enough to bring a tear to the eye of a lover of this great continent, and it has done.

But we've done that journey before and we can only imagine the horror of confining Ella to a railway carriage for two hours while we try to admire the view so we opted for the skyrail both ways because it's quicker and much less painful.

And craftily, we thought Ella might sit still once she saw how far there is to fall.

"Don't want fall" she said without the slightest provocation, as she wiggled back into her seat.

"I just sit here, sit properly. I just hold onto side".

Bingo. It worked a treat.