Finding Nemo in the Great Barrier Reef

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After two flights from Perth to Brisbane to Cairns and a load of free alcohol, courtesy of Qantas, it was a Valentine's Day to remember (or remember parts of anyway). We arrived at the Caravalla Hostel at 11pm, where we were greeted by the legendary Gloria at the check in desk. This little fragile old lady, still had a spring in her step and plenty of sexual innuendos on her lips, hilarious. We threw our bags in the room, which we'd pre-booked for a special rate of $12 each per night. We even got our room upgraded as we'd arrived so late. Then we headed out into town to the Woolshed Bar, which was a huge backpacker hotspot. Cheap drinks, loud music and party people kept us going until the early hours. Jo even blagged a free jug of beer from a random and can't even remember how she achieved it!

The next day was a bit of a write off, as we felt a little worse for wear. We mustered the energy to get out of bed at 2pm, treat ourselves to a hangover cure of a grease filled burger, but as we were about to head out the rain came down so we headed back indoors and chilled until tea time. As part of our stay at the Carvalla we also got a free evening meal at the Woolshed between 6 and 9:30pm, which as you can probably guess became a place we saw rather a lot of! After our free feed, we headed to the night market and did a bit of shopping before retiring to bed.

The next day we excitedly booked our Great Barrier Reef day trip, a must do from Cairns and after a bit of negotiating we managed to bolt on a helicopter to ride over the reef for an extra $80! So it would be a day of new things – seeing the biggest and most beautiful coral reef in the world, scuba diving and flying in a helicopter.

The next couple of days in the lead up to our GBR excursion we spent relaxing by the lagoon, which was a brilliant creation by the local Council to improve tourism for Cairns considering the beach there is just a huge length of mudflats. It certainly made up for the lack of sandy shore though. It's basically a giant swimming pool, with fountains and a pretend beach and lots of shaded areas and sunbathing spots dotted around.

On Friday we woke up bouncing out of our beds and headed for the Marina. We collected our boarding passes and hopped aboard our big boat and set sail for the reef. On our way there we were given a detailed but comical briefing from the crew. The Kiwi chef and general helper Elvis was hilarious. We arrived at our first spot on the reef, where we were going to do our introductory scuba dive. Jay had never been diving before but was surprised at how calm he was, we were both just really excited and keen to get in the water. Everyone had to where a 'stinger suit' due to it being jellyfish season and we looked quite ridiculous but the dodgy fashion statement was certainly better than getting a nasty sting from the deadly Box jellyfish and his friends that frequent these waters. We were called up into the first dive group, so no messing around and we were loaded up with our oxygen tanks, weights, masks, flippers and so on and then dragged ourselves to the edge of the boat and lowered ourselves into the water. There were 4 people plus the instructor in each dive group and we all had to link arms during the dive. We practised the skills we'd been taught, and then got submerged under the ocean. We gradually descended deeper together, remembering to equalise by popping our ears every metre. We swam all around lots of beautifully shaped and coloured coral, spotting thousands of different types of fish, enormous clams the size of us, and we even got to stoke a giant see cucumber as if we were James Bond villians and it was our fluffy white cat. It did resemble more of a massive slug on steriods but a really pretty colourful one.

The diving was amazing, but once our time was up, we got back in the water pretty quickly to do some snorkelling – not long had we been black in the sea, than we spotted a white tip reef shark swimming a few metres below us! Jo even held her breath and swam down to get a closer look, and got almost within touching distance. At some points the reef was so shallow we had to hover over it without kicking our feet as we'd damage the coral and probably cut our legs in the process. It was by far the best snorkeling we have ever done, it was just like being in Finding Nemo, we even got to see the star himself.

When our time was up we got back on board and indulged in an amazing BBQ lunch. We got through six steaks, six sausages, and a mountain of salad, pasta, prawns and fish between us, amazing.

The boat set sail for our second location and when we arrived we were taken on a little motorboat to a helipad in the middle of the sea. A minute or so later our chopper landed and we got in, Jo even managed to get the front seat, to ensure we got a load of great pictures from above. A couple of weeks before we had seen Opera Winfrey do the exact same thing, so we felt pretty special up in the clouds, looking down on one of the most beautiful parts of nature in the world. Our flight was only ten minutes long but, that was plenty of time to be awestruck. The pilot turned the chopper on its side and pointed out a group of about twenty turtles swimming around the reef. From where we were they looked like little brown disks but you could tell they were turtles.

After our flight we agreed to do a second dive for a reduced price of $30 each, but this time we were allowed off the leash and able to swim by ourselves under the watchful eye of the instructor. Before our slot we had time for more snorkelling and had a close encounter with a huge barracuda which was about 1.5 metres long, with very intimidating and sharp looking teeth! But apparently he is a friendly neighbour of our boat and is known as Barry the Barracuda, and we were assured he wouldn't bite (kind of).

Our second dive was just as spectacular and it was wonderful to have the freedom of swimming by ourselves and touching things or moving in for a closer look. In our stinger suits, Jo enjoyed getting her revenge on the relatives of those that have stung her in the past by grabbing, fighting and punching the little jelly fish that were all around us. The safety of our stinger suits meant we could see just how surprisingly solid they were when you touched them.

Once we were all done with our underwater adventure we got back on the boat, enjoyed some free wine, cheese and biscuits and made the most of the sun by topping up our tans on the deck.

Once back on solid ground we were pretty tired so took it easy for the rest of the evening. Just before bedtime a lovely Brazilian couple arrived in our four bed dorm for the night and we quickly became friends. We spent the next few days with Carlos and Ivy, first at the lagoon, then we enjoyed a night out, ending up at the popular Gilligans nightclub, then on Sunday we took a trip to Port Douglas for the day, checking out the beaches, which in all honestly were a bit disappointing . The town was pleasant and we enjoyed some fish and chips before attempting a trip to Mossman Gorge – however, we were thwarted by the heavy rain which had formed a gushing river across the road as we got nearer to the rainforest. On the way back to Cairns we stopped at Palm Cove which was an improvement on the other beaches and also stopped off to get a few snaps of Hartley's Crocodile Adventure Park. We couldn't afford the entry fee and for some reason they don't do free entry for people called Hartley, so we didn't go in!

That evening the four of us upgraded our free meals for steaks, ribs and curry after several days eating chilli con carne and spag bol and it was well worth the few bucks extra. We stayed for one more night, to enjoy the great weather, and Jay was even roped into a game of Meal or No Meal at the Woolshed, he didn't win $250,000 though. The next day is was time to move on and after hearing Mission Beach was still wrecked from the cyclone, we went straight on to Townsville.

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Comments

[Alan Fruin]

Having a great time
Hi Jo and Jay Looks like you are still having a great time. You must be way past Airlie Beach by now, perhaps in Sydney. Heather 1.2 weeks in Adelaide and I only went for 3 days. As Iv'e been there so many times there wasn't much to see. We are getting along OK and are looking forward to Bali in September. Let us know how youare getting on. Heather and Alan