Cairns, Australia - The Great Barrier Reef

We saved the best for last.  No Australia trip is complete without seeing the Great Barrier Reef.  One of the best places to catch a boat out to some of the inner and outer spots to dive or snorkel is Cairns, Queensland.  To add to the challenge, we also rented a car for our few days there.  I never got the chance to drive on the left in the UK so it was fun to finally test it out.  I'm pretty sure Jolene was more freaked out by the experience and she was just the passenger, but there was a traffic circle every half a mile so anybody not from New Jersey would most likely be nervous.

Cairns is essentially a beach town with a strong dependence on tourism of the reef and the nearby rainforest.  They have made a great public lagoon for people to swim in because you are not allowed to swim in the ocean next to town due to the frequent saltwater crocodile sightings that don't play well with others!

The morning after arriving, we went out with Reef Excursions and snorkeled at two different outer reef locations.  We opted against taking any under water photos because it honestly took all our concentration to not swallow any water while trying to breath correctly with the snorkel.  Jolene did convince me to wear a wetsuit to protect me "just in case" but as far as water temperature it was a little cool but not bad.  By the end of our first drop off I had made progress on the breathing and was able to dive down and swim with the various schools of fish and even had a chance to swim side by side with a hawksbill turtle and even various schools of fish in the ravines created by the different parts of the reef.  Just the simple fact that there were so many different types of bright coral and fish easily kept you mesmerized in a dead float near the surface looking down.  I never did sight the infamous clown fish but I did have an altercation with a couple monstrous wrasse fish.

The next day we stuck to land after a boat ride back that was a little choppy.  Unfortunately for Jolene, the Gillie highway up into the tablelands is the most curvy 19 km of paved surface I've ever been on. (While this put Jolene's stomach on edge it was the Japanese kid behind her that eventually lost his cookies).  We went with a small group into the tablelands to search for Australian animals in their natural habitat and even do some walking through the rainforest at night to spot some of the nocturnal animals you'd not ever find otherwise.



Exploring next to an old Cathedral Fig Tree

Armed with binoculars we were guided around by a German-Spanish gentleman (Tappy) with a doctorate in environmental biology from Venezuela that had an immense knowledge of everything we ever wanted to know and more.  He knew of the best spots to see these animals and had a good eye (g'dye) for spotting them in the dense forest during the afternoon and again once we were hiking around in the dark that evening.


Night Time Rainforest Animal Sightings

We got a chance to spot a ton of animals (green ring tailed possum, lesser silty owl, brush tail possum, musky rat kangaroo, northern ringtail gecko, huntsman spider, agile wallabies, flying foxes, platypus, and tree kangaroos).


Flying Foxes (actually bats)

There are definitely great stories that go with all of these, but the colony of mating flying foxes, and sneaking down the edge of a wooded pond to watch the active platypuses were quite memorable.  Also, we broke off from our group temporarily at Barrine Lake (crater lake) and with Jolene's help spotted a musky rat kangaroo ourselves.


For our final day in Cairns we explored by ourselves and let me test out my driving on the wrong side of the road.  We ended up taking the skyrail across Barron Gorge National Park up to Kuranda.  This included amazing views of the gorge and the canopy of the rain forest.  Once in Kuranda we enjoyed our day in their various animal parks and exploring the small shops.  We were able to get up close to all sorts of local animals and we tested out our unofficial fear of birds as well.  It was only appropriate that we got a quick strong rain shower (while in the rain forest) but we ducked into the Frog Café and enjoyed the view until it passed.




Kuranda Rainforest Walk



Jolene, Lanna, and Mike

This was also our final chance to allow Jolene to truly cuddle with a Koala.  Her name was Lanna and let's just say Jolene has not stopped talking about her.  While the official handoff of the koala was an event, she soon settled in and decided Jolene was her new/favorite tree.



If your trip to Australia is meant to see the truly amazing diversity of it's flora and fauna, then Cairns is a great place to go as a jumping off point.  It definitely helped us get up close to what is still there and needs all of our help to protect it for the future.