Advertisement
"Under the sea
Under the sea
Darling it's better
Down where it's wetter
Take it from me
Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devotin'
Full time to floatin'
Under the sea"
-The Little Mermaid
The Great Barrier Reef attracted me the most of all the attractive things in Australia. Its a massive expanse of living creatures that frolic beneath the sea. I find it very creepy. Especailly when you think of the carniverous coral plants just waiting for unsuspecting fish to swim by where they can grab them.
I flew from Christchurch, New Zealand to Brisbane (my third entry into that particular city). I spent one night there and then took the overnight train to Airlie Beach. Well you can't actually take the train all the way to Airlie Beach, but if you take it to a town called Prosepine, they will but you on a bus to get out to Airlie Beach. I was scheduled to stay five days in Airlie Beach. Day one was to explore the town, day two was a sailing trip around the Whitsunday
Islands and Whitehaven beach. Day three was a cruise out to knuckle reef to snorkle on the Great Barrier Reef. Day four was to be a day exploring Long Island before a train up to Townsville.
The actual course of events were as follows: Day one arrive in Airlie Beach to torrential rain. Day two take a ride on a boat around the Whitsundays amongst more torrential rain and listen to the boat crew wonder why they didn't get this rain during the wet season instead. Day three there is more rain, but since snorkling is underwater the rain doesn't bother as much. Arrive back at the hostel to find that all trains and buses from Airlie beach have been canceled for the rest of the week. Day four is spent on the phone trying to arrange another train booking, but since it is raining again a hike around an island doesn't seem very enticing. Day five is finally sunny and is spent playing in the lagoon at Airlie Beach. Swimming in the ocean is not reccomended without a wetsuit as the box jelly fish will sting you. About 10 days after I arrived in Airlie beach I was
finally allowed to leave. I cancelled my trip up north to Cairns and Townsville since I did not want to risk being trapped by flooding again. Instead I headed back to Brisbane (for the forth time) and then down to Sydney to visit with friends and pick up my mail from home. I took the train to Melbourne for a few days and then to Adelaide.
Airlie Beach is a extremely touristy desination with one mainstreet filled mainly with hostels, hotels and travel agents. The Whitsundays are the major draw for the area and they are lovely. I bet they would have been even lovelier without the rain.
Great Barrier Reef Fun Facts from the Stuff You Should Know podcast
1) There are 18,500 linear miles of coral face on the Great Barrier Reef
2) An individual coral polyp is 3 milimeters long3) Coral are not plants but have symbiotic algae cells that undergo photosynthesis.4) Coral are carnivores and in sometimes will cannibalize other coral.5) Coral grows about 3.9 inches a year so coral reefs can be thousands of years old.6) Water needs to be 73.4-84.2 degrees Fahrenheit for coral to grow. 7) Coral
bleaching happens when the temperature of the water rises as little as 1 degree causing the algae to abandon the coral structure. This causes it to loose its color and eventually die.8) In 1981 the Great Barrier Reef became a world heritage site.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.042s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0213s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
ellen wilson
non-member comment
wow.
beautiful and colorfull. did you get to waterslide into the ocean?