Blogs from Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 12

Arrival In Cairns Our bus came in at 6:30am so after making it to Koala Hostel to claim a free night, courtesy of our quiz win. We had a quick sleep before hitting the streets in search of tour operators to arrange some diving and a trip to Cape Tribulation. Once we had done this, we headed for a walk around Cairns to get a taster of the place (pretty nice town) and got some tasty Mexican grub at Koalas (seems to be their speciality) for a cheap price. A jug of beer went down well and we headed to bed early after doing an essential laundry in preperation for the dive trip the next day. Great Barrier Reef We were both really excited but also a bit nervous about diving again as it had been ... read more

So it actually is a weekend not friday on a monday or saturday on a thursday but actually saturday the 10th May and we woke up to a cloudy drizzly day again very unmotivated so headed over chinamans to Watsons bay where for some reason today there were plenty of catamarans parked like cars in a carpark....... it was chilly which is very bizarre to say so we walked to the end of the beach where the foot of cooks look began and where we had been told the snorkelling was pretty interresting laid out our towels and before we knew it started to snore ...before too long we were woken by passers by thinking at 9 o clock in the morning ...not nice weather ..still fully clothes why were these girls crashed out on the ... read more

The Great Barrier Reef Today was a day that made the trip. I woke up early (did not get up to see the sunrise on the beach like I planned), but early enough to meet all the people coming back from the sunrise service for Anzac Day at the coffee shop while I was getting breakfast. $2.50 for a fresh made croissant with honey. Then we all met Mazz and Macca outside the hostel to walk together to the Marina where we would meet the ship taking us out to the reef. We used a company called Compass. Other than a few shortcomings that I will speak of later I will say that they are quite a good company to go with. The Arcadia group was a total of 50 people and we only made ... read more

After a night of disrupted sleep (thank you, Shearwaters), I went for a post-breakfast snorkel with my buddy Rika. We headed out along the concrete wall that leads out towards the wreck that serves as Heron's breakwater (it's not allowed to snorkel near the wreck or in the channel during the day, as you'd be run over by a boat). We saw lots of wonderful fish, as well as three big black-tip reef sharks (easily 7 or 8 feet long). We then headed out for a second session of deep-water, jump-off-a-boat snorkeling at a different site. This was a drift snorkel (basically, jump off the boat and drift in the current, with a boat drifting alongside you to pick up anyone who panics or gets tired). This snorkel was definitely my favorite! We saw heaps of ... read more

First day at the Reef, and I'm pooped. The bus trip was very long and uncomfortable, because the coach wasn't meant for long travel the seats didn't recline and there were no reading lights. I basically slept in about 5 or 6 different positions, only to wake up briefly when we stopped for stretch/pee breaks (for which I promptly went back to sleep again). Sleeping was awkward and left me achey... Finally, after 7 hours in the bus, we reached the glorious Gladstone. Basically, it's an industrial place and pretty much looks the part--lots of smoke stacks, sort of a little run-down looking, but one of the key producers of aluminum (said in Oz 'al-you-mini-um,' not the American 'al-oom-in-um') and the southernmost end of the natural range of the saltwater crocodile (which we didn't see... fortunately? ... read more