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The Great Barrier Reef

January 23rd, 2009 | Posted by Davey in 11-Australia | UNESCO World Heritage Sites - (3 Comments)

Larger than the Great Wall of China and the only living thing visible from space, the Great Barrier Reef is one of the seven wonders of the natural world.  The spectacular kaleidoscope of colour stretched along the Queensland seaboard from south of the Capricorn to Torres Strait south of New Guinea.  A BBC TV programme rated it second only to the Grand Canyon on a list of 50 places to see before you die (Lonely Planet).

We (more like I) could hardly sleep with the excitement of diving this spectacular wonder.  A 60km ride off the coast of Cairns meant we had to be up and on the boat rather early. It took over 2hrs to get to get to our first drop off.  Sam signed up for the guided tour as she hadn’t dived since November and felt more comfortable with an instructor.  I took an unguided tour and buddied up with Berry, the guy for the Netherlands.

To be brutality honest it was great but not absolutely spectacular which we were expecting.  The time of year, weather conditions and visibility were not in our favour.  Once in, Berry and I headed straight for the 80m coral wall, passing some nice shallow corals along the way, but once there we were a little disappointed.  Although there was a great diversity of corals we were expecting them to be more colourful and surrounded by many more fish.  That said, we got to swim with turtles and a few white-tip reef sharks which was a first and damn amazing – we soon gulped our air as we chased them around. Sam unfortunately seen neither.

If we get the chance we will try another dive somewhere along the coast.  The photos are a little disappointing and come nowhere near those taken in Indonesia.

UNESCO World Heritage Site #17

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Quite Cairns

January 23rd, 2009 | Posted by Davey in 11-Australia - (4 Comments)

We arrived in Cairns a couple of days ago and all we seemed to have done, apart from drink wine and chill out at the man-made lagoon (pictured below), is sort out a campervan which we pick up on Tuesday.

Advised by other travellers we decided to rent rather than buy.  Seemingly, many that have purchased vans in Cairns, and have completed the east coast route, are struggling to sell in Sydney – we certainly don’t want to joining that queue.  Because there are a large number of rental vehicles in Cairns that need taking back to Sydney we were able to negotiate a good deal, from $70 a day down to $40 for a hi-top with all the trimmings.  Hopefully we won’t have to pay for too many campsites; they range from $25–40 a night depending on facilities but there are some free ones too.  We are very excited about getting out of the city and getting back in a campervan. 

Cairns by all accounts is really really quite, yet more evidence of a slowdown in the economies of the UK and the rest of Europe where a large portion of their tourists come from.  Some bars are now closing a 9pm because of the lack of trade.  Ironically, there doesn’t seem to be much discount on tourist traps, places of interest or accommodation.

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