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| Cairns is a launching point for visiting the Great Barrier Reef. It is tropical and feels more like Tahiti than Australia. We plan to return to Cairns sometime for a longer visit - there are some amazing places to see.
This is Trinity Beach where we stayed, just north of Cairns. The natives look very friendly.
We went out to see the reef when the winds slowed to around 15-20 knots. The boat traveled to a pontoon moored alongside an area on the outer reef from which we could snorkel and take boat trips.
Snorkeling around the reef - the water was a little cloudy due to the wind but there was still plenty to see (FYI: a moustache and a snorkel mask do not go well together - the taste of the South Pacific up your nose is not great!).
From the semi-submersible boat, we had a great view of lot's of fish - very friendly and unafraid......
...and many different types of coral. The reef had just been bleached by excessively warm waters that had passed through a month before. This meant that the colors were more subdued than normal but they were still spectacular.
On our way out of Cairns, the pilot obligingly took an easterly swing over the reef giving us some spectacular sights of the various reef formations along the coast. These two reefs show some great colors. The entire formation stretches some 2000km (1250 miles) right up to Papua New Guinea. |
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