An historic train ride up and sky lift back down is definitely as easier way to see the Tablelands. Our destination Karanda, a little tourist town on the edge between tablelands and the rainforest. The highlight is actually the getting to and from. Narrow gage rail passes through more than a dozen tunnels and around tight turns as we wind our way up. The sky lift soars above the rainforest canopy for a great bird’s eye view. We join a very rainy ranger led walk along the boardwalk about half way down. She does a great job even though she is talking above the thunder of rain on our umbrellas. We shop a bit in town and have a delicious lunch and the almost obligatory mango smoothie. It makes for a nice day even though we dodge rain showers in the afternoon. As the locals say, it is a rainforest after all.
In the bummers category
Our groceries were stolen out of the communal kitchen. My chocolates and my special cheeses. Very bummed.
And
Air New Zealand (our carrier back to the US) is suspending service the end of March. Our current reservations are for April 7. Not going to happen. Customer service numbers are all busy so we will be spending some time on the phone the next few days getting things rearranged. More on that later.