I arrived at Cairns airport after a three-hour direct flight, jumped into my hire car, a cute little Hyandai Getz, and drove the short 25 kilometres into the mountain ranges behind Cairns to Kuranda, the Village in the Rain Forest. Checked into the Kuranda Hotel and enjoyed my first cold beer of the day. Later I went for a stroll up the main street of Kuranda and passed the Faraway Tree Building which I remembered from the real estate website as being the location of the two strata-titled flats for sale in town. As I looked around the building, a voice from above bailed me up. No, it wasn't God but Marshall, one of the tenants, who works at "The Ark" and who wasted no time in familiarising me with all the local gossip and introducing me to the only owner-occupiers in the building, the retired couple Pat & George Mcfarlane." [continue reading here]
I wrote this over eighteen years ago, and since then have kept up my interest in the little Village in the Rain Forest in the hills behind Cairns.
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After twenty-nine years at "Riverbend" - it may be a full thirty years by the time it's sold - I'll be definitely down-down-down-downsizing. No more carpentry or testing my plumbing skills, no more power tools or sitting for hours on a ride-on, and no more woodsplitting so as not to shiver through another cold winter. All I want is a room with a view (and room for my books) in a place that's either warm or hot but never cold.
For more information on Kuranda, go to www.kuranda.org
I had looked at 14 Barang Street which last month sold for $420,000, and then at a two-bedroom unit at 9/40 Coondoo Street which also sold last month for $207,000, which left a one-bedroom in the same Faraway Tree House, Unit 12, for sale at $187,000, but now also 'Under Offer'.
During my visit in 2003 I befriended the retired couple Pat & George Mcfarlane who lived in Unit 10 which they bought in 1992 for $96,000. The unit for sale at the time was the two-bedroom Unit 11 which then sold in 2004 for $93,000 (after having been bought twelve years earlier for $96,000; the real estate market in the tropical north is fickle; one big cyclone or one big Wet and everyone goes back to the Deep South!)
For past sale prices, click here
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Such small pied-à-terre is ideal, and I'll keep my eyes on the Faraway Tree House. Someone might head south in the next twelve months which is how long it will take to sell "Riverbend" once I've put my mind to it.
P.S. If you want to know what a property is worth, realestateview.com.au is a good starting point.
