Finding Nemo

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For my final week in Oz, Sean, Liam and I went to Cairns. This was a total blow-the-budget trip (for me, anyway)...none of this slumming it in a tent or a backpackers, we had instead booked a holiday apartment in the amusingly named town of Yorkeys Knob, about 15kms north of Cairns. Although, to be fair, it says a lot about our lowered standards of late that the things we were most looking forward to before getting there were having a bed to sleep on (rather than an air mattress) and, for Liam, a TV. And then there was the pool...It was wonderful. Particularly when you're in Cairns in the middle of summer, and just stepping outside makes you so hot and sweaty you want to run and jump into the nearest available bit of water (preferably non-crocodile or stinger infested). We were actually incredibly lucky with the weather while we were in Cairns...while it was pouring with rain when we left Brisbane, it hardly rained at all in Cairns and was beautifully sunny pretty much all the time.

Just in case you were wondering, we did manage to do a few things in Cairns other than just go in the pool. As well as trips to the Daintree Rainforest and to the Atherton Tablelands, we went for a day trip to Green Island, a coral cay about an hour's boat trip away from Cairns. The main attraction of the island is to go snorkelling, which we all did. At first, I didn't manage to see very much except for the greater spotted Japanese tourist, but once we got a bit further away from the beach it got much better. This was my first time snorkelling, and it was so fascinating to see all the fish and coral so close - it's like a whole different world underwater. For me, it was like a taster for my trip to the Great Barrier Reef - Sean assured me that what we'd seen at Green Island wasn't a patch on what I'd see out there.

I almost didn't get to go out to the reef, as despite the weather being perfect on land it wasn't out at the reef. For the first few days we were in Cairns, none of the tour operators were running trips out to the outer reef - apparently this was the first time they'd cancelled the trips for four days in a row that anyone could remember. It was all to do with the wind direction, apparently. So when I finally did get to go, I was really excited about it. The company I'd booked with (Reef Magic, if anyone's interested) had a fixed pontoon out on the outer reef. As well as snorkelling they also had a semi-submersible, an underwater observatory, helicopter rides and SCUBA dives. However, I didn't do any of this and just stuck to the snorkelling. I'd signed up to do a guided snorkel tour in the morning, led by a marine biologist. That was really interesting, and I learnt all kinds of random facts about the fish we saw, most of which I've forgotten. I also saw Nemo (OK, maybe not Nemo but maybe one of his cousins) hiding out in a sea anenome. The rest of the morning I snorkelled around by myself, just enjoying being able to see so many fascinating and colourful fish close up. After about an hour of this, I decided I wanted a bit more than fish - I wanted turtles, and reef sharks. So in the afternoon I did an 'Adventure Snorkel Safari' which promised to offer me what I wanted. However, it didn't, so I was a bit disappointed. On the boat on the way back I thought about this, and realised that I'd been expecting to seem them because of what Sean had told me about his first time snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef - which was 17 years ago. Since then, I imagine things have changed a lot, both on the reef itself and also how the tour operators operate...he was probably allowed to go to places which are off limits now. So maybe my expectations were unrealistically high. I still had a good time though.

All in all, it was a brilliant way to end my time in Oz. I can't believe those almost two months have gone by so quickly! But I'm sure I'll be back again. Next stop, New Zealand...

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Photos

The swimming pool
I wanna be there right now!!

Wet season, what wet season?
The view along the coast going up towards the Daintree Rainforest

The end of the road
The beach at Cape Tribulation