CAIRNS - Flying the Great Barrier Reef

---

Sunday 28th November

We enjoyed our long lie in and once we got ourselves together we hailed a taxi and headed for the airport to catch our scenic flight tour plane.

We arrived about a hour early so we sunbathed out the front of the building as it was scorching hot again. Our pilot arrived and took our details and informed us that our 30 minute flight was being upgraded free of charge as our other 4 passengers have booked on for the hour. Since there's only one pilot on today they are putting us all up together. Obviously we don't complain. 😊

After a quick demo on the safety issues we walk out to our plane which is a 46 year old bucket with wings. Its all good as we board the plane with Jill up front with the pilot with myself behind with four others huddled in the back. We wait for clearance from air control and its a slow taxiing up the side of the runway before turning around to face the empty runway before us.
Theres a few anxious moments as the pilot checks the controls and informs us that the air conditioning has packed in and its going to get rather warm. We are already sweating at the thought of this thing even taking off so a broken aircon couldnt be of any use anyway!
A quick ok from air control and its time to fly. The pilot opens up the throttle and we are moving, slowly at first, before the noise is deafening to the point the whole plane is shaking and rattling. Im honestly waiting for a wing to drop off and the look on Jills face tells a thousand stories! The shaking suddenly stops and we are airborne! That was quite a hairy take off to be fair but we are climbing and turning at the same time and heading out and over the Coral Sea and the Great Barrier Reef. The plane suddenly becomes a flying sofa and we are happy as fluffy ducks!

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 1,600 miles over an area of approximately 133,000 sq miles.
The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms. This reef supports a wide diversity of life, and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981.

We have climbed to a height of 2000 ft and maintain that altitude and as we glance behind us we can see the whole Cairns and the Macallister Mountain Range in the background. We can easily see the Kuranda Rainforest stretching out for miles in every direction and now we know why it rains so much here as the sheer size of the Tablelands area that encompasses Cairns is huge!

As we fly out to the Coral Sea in a South Eastern direction its not long before we pass over our first location which is the lovely Green Island which is a very popular coral cay 17 miles offshore from Cairns. The island was formed approximately 6,000 years ago by waves depositing sand, coral and other debris onto its coral foundations.

The Coral Sea is a beautiful light blue colour and you can easily see formations of corals beneath the waters surface. Now and then we see little islands covered in beautiful white sand with the odd boat floating around them with people snorkelling and swimming. When is say small islands i mean about the size of half a football pitch to the size of the penalty box. As we reach the outer edge of the reefs the colour of the water changes dramatically to a very dark blue as the reef acts as Barrier to the deep waters. There are large waves crashing onto the corals edge which adds to the effect.

We keep flying Eastwards and bank to our right and head for the large Arlington Reef which was now even more magnificent as we swooped down to 1000 ft. Arlington Reef is a shallow area full of soft corals, which makes it a very colourful site and it is massive as we must have flown the full length of it in about 15 minutes. More luxury cruisers and people sitting on isolated beaches all adds to the amazing time we were having flying 1000ft from the surface. We took another turn, this time and it was a dive left as we were pinned to one side of the seat as the pilot dropped us 500 ft towards the Michaelmas Reef.

We had a fly around the Michaelmas Reef and travelled parallel to the long narrow reef to our left and it was awesome as you could see marine life and corals of various colours. There are a few people on one of the sandbanks here and you just want to join them for a couple of shrimps on the barbie!

We are now heading to the slightly smaller reefs of Oyster and Upolo and they are pretty cool as they are a totally different shape, more rounded rather than long. We have been flying for 45 minute now and head for home so we climb back up to 2000ft and the views are magic as yo take it all in. To think this is a small portion of the Great Barrier reef is mind boggling and we are looking forward to getting up close and personal with the reefs in the very near future.

We fly back towards Cairns and we can see the Trinity River mouth as we turn broadside to the coast and descend back towards the runway. If the take off sounded bad well prepare for the landing as as we approached the runway, about 500 metres out, the plane lurched and bounced around as it hit cross winds which set us up for a bit of a messy landing. The pilot did a cracking job of keeping us level enough to touch down and with a screech of rubber and a thump we had made it onto the tarmac safe and sound. We were glad to get some fresh air as we got out the plane and we thanked the pilot for a nice tour and hailed a taxi back to the esplanade for a well needed beer!

We spent the night packing our bags as we are catching a greyhound bus to our next destination which is Mission Beach just 3 hours drive south of Cairns. We'll be glad to see the back of this hostel that's for sure, fingers crossed our next hostel is much better which shouldn't be hard as we couldn't get any worse I doubt.

Monday 29th November

We checked out and hurriedly made it down the street to the Macdonalds as they have free wi-fi internet even when you sit outside without ordering. We have a hour to kill before we jump aboard the bus so we search the internet for the best hostels in Mission Beach. We've looked for the highest rated one's on the hostelbookers website and it Scottys hostel looks all right judging by the pictures and reviews.

We walked around to the bus stop where there were already a group of backpackers gathered in line to catch the bus so we joined the queue and looked out our pre booked tickets. Bags aboard and bums on seats, we are off and I dozed most of the way.

We arrived in Mission beach (pop 540) mid afternoon and our free shuttle bus was waiting for us and another couple to take us a mile down the road to the beach front and the hostel.

We have arrived at scotty's and we have made a great choice as already we are greeted with big smiles and the atmosphere is super relaxed and has very friendly vibe about it. There's groovy music being played not to loudly across the pool and lounging areas and people are either chatting or reading books on hammocks. We are here for three nights and its looks like we'll manage to get by and meet some new faces.
We've got our own room which has a double bed and a fridge which is perfect, the air conditioning works a treat and we've the choice of a fan or the electric box air con.
We have only got our skydive on Wednesday so other than that its time to chill and relax so we get changed and into our swim gear for a dip in the pool which is very big and is just the tonic after a bus journey.

Scottys has its own restaurant out the front and they do special deals for hostel guests so we had fish and chips for tea for about ten pounds in total which was good value. Over dinner we discuss the possibility of doing our skydive tomorrow instead of Wednesday as the weather forecast is good and we want a perfect day for our jump as the views from the sky are meant to be awesome. Im actually trying not to think about it just yet as i would rather wait until Wednesday as planned. We found the TV room and watched the news for half hour before deciding to call it a night. We could here some of the younger guests drinking well into the night but once the midnight curfew kicked in all was quiet and we knew we were in a good place.

---

Comments

[Fred]

Sharing your experience
You have to know that your trip has had a profound affect on me, by including us 'in' as family we really feel and share your sense of awe and wonder at all that you are seeing, thrilled for you that you are so obviously moved and excited and ourselves rejuvinated by your appreciation of this wonderful world. I would judge this is the best investment you have ever made and it's coming to us free of charge! What's it like travelling with your own personal chef Jill? Lots of love F & S

[leonandjill]

hello
Hi sam and fred. Yes we are reallly having the time of our lives and although its getting tiring we are pushing ourselves onwards. Jills in her element as im managing to cook most nights although we do treat ourselves now and then to a meal out. We are currently in Airlie beacb and heading for Rainbow beach where we catch our boat to fraser island. Should fun as im looking forward to seeing my first dingo! Of course we added you in as Family as we wanted to share our experiences with friends and family as without them we couldnt do what we're doing. xx love to you both.

[Ang]

Sounds absolutely amazing! The way your blog is written gives a real sense of what your experience can imagine I was there.... Just wish we were! Love getting you updates. Stay safe xxx