Blogs from Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 2

Been a while since I posted.....lots of planes and traveling in between blog posts...... I headed out of Canberra on Tuesday Feb 21st and flew into Brisbane...about an hour and a half flight.....short layover and then from Brisbane to Proserpine, another hour and a half......the heat was incredible.....weather from Canberra to the north of Australia is so different.....from our summer weather to intense heat and humidity.......good practice for Bali! Short bus trip from Proserpine into Airlie Beach. Typical summery type beach town......luv it so far.....my hotel is situated right across from the beach and the view is spectacular (score 1). Who wouldn't want to live here?????? Walked around town trying to decide amongst the dozens of tour places who/where to book the Great Barrier Reef Dive Trip.....I wanna get it just right.....as luck would have it ... read more

Checking in at Singapore airport gave us a little surprise that we weren’t prepared for ….TWO FLIGHTS! We did a changeover from Darwin to Cairns but it wasn’t too bad as we are ‘Frequent Flyers’ to Jetstar now so a blanket and some socks kept us cozy. We arrived in Cairns at 10am exhausted from the lack of sleep on the flights but we were soon on a comfy bed in a place called Dreamtime! A great place to stay if you are ever in Cairns, 10 minute walk to the lagoon and the supermarket is just across the road. The vibe in Dreamtime was really good, everyone was friendly and we met a lot of people in our time here. Due to a lack of sleep we were in bed by 9pm that night and ... read more

All I can say is today was AMAZING. One of the guys warned us that it wouldn't look as bright as you see in pictures due to the lack of red light or something but it was still breath takingly colourful. Hard to describe. We saw so many fish (although no Nemo fish, turtles or Reef Sharks, only disappointment) and corals that were just beautiful. We just snorkelled but because its so shallow your still in amongst it all. I tried to dive but due to my annoyingly "precious" ears I couldn't. The pressure was too bad, they wouldn't equalize/pop and I couldn't ignore it, felt like something might burst. So only slight gutting thing. Chloe couldn't dive either as she ticked that she's had asthma so atleast we were in the same boat. I really ... read more

It was an early start this morning to head to the boat for the reef trip, but it was worth it. I met up with Emily, a former Rotary Exchange Student I met through my volunteer work with that organization (we sent her to Hungary) who is doing a university semester in Australia, and some of her friends from uni. They were in Cairns during a school break. I also met a really nice family from Victoria. It was great to have people to talk to while we were on the boat. The other times I've been snorkeling ( and ) I'd still felt like I was invading a world I didn't belong in, so I wasn't sure how the day was going to go. It was fine. More than fine. It was wonderful. There were ... read more

Last full day in Port Douglas today :( I've absolutely loved it here - what a great place.... Yesterday we went out to the great barrier reef and I went snorkling! Which is something of an achievement for me as a non-swimmer.. It was fantastic and I loved the snorkling - must learn to swim when I get home. Got a bit too much sun though, as the factor 30 kept waching off in the sea, so I'm a bit red today! I'm just on here while I'm waiting for a bus to pick us up to go to Kuranda. I am taking the sky train up the mountain (Vikki can't do that bit!) then exploring up there and taking atrain down again. Should be some fab views. Tomorrow we fly to Brisbane - last stop ... read more

Today started with a 6:30 AM dive just as the sun was coming up. Can’t say getting into cold wet wetsuits was what we wanted to do that time of day but we were determined that it would be worth it during the dive. We did this dive on our own and the visibility was a bit better than the previous afternoon. But still a bit disappointing for the Great Barrier Reef. Chester was getting better with each dive and Kirsten realized if she let Chester suck off her tank for 5-10 min we could dive longer. After this dive we had a big breakfast and headed back to our room for a nap. The next dive was at 8:30 but as there is 6 dives in a day and you can only do 5, we ... read more