ANGRY tourists on their return to the Skyrail terminal after a power cut kept them stranded in gondolas for more than four hours. PIC: Brian Cassey Source: The Courier-Mail
More than 50 tourists have been left hanging after a power outage at the Skyrail attraction at Kuranda, near Cairns. File Source: The Cairns Post
OPERATORS of the Skyrail cable-car attraction near Cairns have been criticised for leaving tourists "swinging in the breeze" for hours after power was cut to the popular tourist attraction.
Approximately 54 sightseers sat suspended along the line for more than four hours yesterday afternoon after a fallen tree damaged the electrical control equipment around 4.20pm Saturday and crippled the cableway.
One cableway was back online within an hour and the other with 54 stranded tourists came back on at 8.25pm.
Visibly upset passengers, some arguing loudly with Skyrail staff, trickled back through the main terminal from about 9.30pm.
US tourist Sue Tempero said it was a terrifying ordeal.
"It was scary," she said.
"We were stuck for five hours. It was cold, dark and it was raining hard. It was just like being stuck in a lift except you are hundred feet up in the air."
She criticised Skyrail for a lack of communication.
However, a pair of honeymooning Mexican tourists said they didn't mind the delay.
"We had a lot of time on our hands," said Cinthya Prieto
"We did what all couples on honeymoon do. "Why not?"
She said she now had a story to tell.
"It was an adventure. I trusted everything would be okay. We had a great time. I thought we might have had to sleep there. I could have stayed up there all night."
The Skyrail Rainforest Cableway experience is a 7.5km-long journey over ancient rainforest, Red Peak and Barron River Falls near Kuranda in the state's far north.
It is usually a 2.5 hour round trip but a fallen tree crashed the entire Skyrail control system about 4.20pm yesterday.
It left 54 tourists - including the lovestruck couple - stuck in their gondolas up to 40m high in places until the cable way came back online about 8.20pm last night.
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