Kuranda cattle tour bid

Station aims to get up to 300 visitors a day

AN application for a Kuranda cattle-based tourism venture for up to 300 people a day has been lodged with the Mareeba Shire Council.

Developer Ken Lee has submitted the application under his KUR-Cow branding. He hopes he can start bringing tourists to the Barnwell Rd property from early July.

His project and development manager Mark Lawson said the proposal was separate to Mr Lee’s proposed $650 million KUR-World eco-resort which was subject to an environmental impact statement being assessed by the Queensland Government.

Mr Lawson said KUR-Cow was committed to a permanent tourism business seven days a week and wanted approval certainty.

“KUR-Cow, a cattle grazing and farm venture, has over 6000 head of cattle spread across the Tablelands region,” he said.

“To date the Myola site has hosted travel industry professionals on familiarisation tours and hopes to start welcoming tourists, in particular visitors from China, to experience life on a cattle farm and offer the chance to purchase their own head of cattle.

“Mareeba Shire Council issued an approval for the small nature-based tourism project to commence last year and the new application citing KURCow as a tourism venture would mean the group behind the project could get on with the job of attracting tourists to the region.”

Mr Lawson said the proposal would be in three stages starting with up to 60 a day, then 150 and finally 300 as demand increased.

He said activities would include a cattle display, horse riding, cattle feeding, a working dog show and quad biking.

Mr Lawson said tourists would be bussed to the property to minimise traffic movements in the area.

Chief operations officer Harry Sou said the proposal was not a mini KUR-World.

“This is selling KUR-Cow and is a different proposal to KUR-World,” he said.

“This is a new tourism product to offer all travellers, not just Chinese tourists, but Japanese and English-speaking tourists,” he said.

Mr Sou said there would be improvements to the site including toilet and wastewater facilities and parking. The venture would be marketed to take advantage of the new direct Chinese flights.

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