Journals #35 and #36: Great Barrier Reef
4/5/16-4/6/16
Cover Photo: “Swimming Pools”
Killer Animals Spotted: 1
Today I swam in the Great Barrier Reef and ate Crocodile. In other words, welcome to Cairns!
Cairns (pronounced “Cans” because the British are masochists and enjoy butchering their own language) is medium sized city located in the Australian state of “Queensland” which comprises most of the North east of Australia.
Getting here was very easy- similar to New Zealand, the airports in Australia are about as easy as they get. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but when you check in a bag on either Qantas or Air New Zealand, the process is 100% automated- meaning no people involved, ever. It’s glorious. If you’re in Sydney you also have access to an excellent metro system- it cost me $16 for a 12-minute ride to the airport. That exact ride in a cab took 30 minutes and cost $55.
But I digress…
Cairns is a strange place- although setup like a tourism focused beach town, it cannot escape the environment it was built in: surrounded on all sides by the Barron Gorge and to the north the Daintree Rain Forest, Cairns is very much “in the jungle.” At night, tens of thousands of bats migrate from tree to tree right in the downtown area and the humidity during the day is intense.
It is also one of the easiest places to reach the Great Barrier Reef from, which is why I chose to visit here.
The reef itself is 1400 miles wide, but depending on which tour company you choose (I went with “Down Under Dives”), you get taken to a “reserved” section of the reef for snorkeling and diving. From what I understand, these sections can very tremendously in quality (i.e. color, number of fish, etc.)- I was sitting with a Kiwi guy most of the trip and he was saying the places we visited today were 100 times better than where he went the last time he visited the reef.
I did the snorkeling tour- primarily because doing Scuba diving would have meant I had to stay an extra day in Cairns (it is illegal in Australia to scuba dive one day after or one day before a flight). We went to two different stops (each 2.5 hours long) on the reef- the first was about 30 miles off the coast of Cairns, the second was roughly 25 miles away.
The reef is incredibly gorgeous- unfortunately though, my underwater photography skills are pretty rough (as in, this is literally the first time I’ve ever done it), but hopefully the pictures I’ve included today give you a decent idea of what it looks like ☺.
Also side note: I ended up renting a standard point and shoot camera- primarily because that was 10x cheaper than renting a underwater “housing” for my big camera. That said- if you have the money I would recommend trying to make your expensive camera work. The company I used for the rental was “Wetrez Underwater Camera Hire” right in downtown Cairns- they were awesome- highly recommend using them over the touring companies.
The water in the reef is extremely shallow- one section at our second stop was only a foot or so underwater. What’s crazy though is the drop off on the edges of it is HUGE- I was snorkeling along the bottom of the reef and then less than a second later I was staring into the black abyss of the ocean.
There are basically no sharks out there either- if you’re lucky you’ll see a small reef shark, but for the most part the exotic wildlife is limited to small colorful fish, the rare sting ray, and the super rare sea turtle. The main threat (and today’s killer animal) is the jelly fish- I only saw one the entire time, but a guy on our trip got stung all over his back and it looked nasty.
Side note: If you come prepared with cash (*cough* not me *cough*), you can rent a “stinger suit” for $20. I think you should be fine as long as you safely follow the universal principle of “Pay attention and don’t be dumbass”- but hey, if you have the cash, why not?
Tonight I celebrated my (almost) first full week in Australia by eating Crocodile Ribs- they are super meaty and (although I strongly hate this expression) they do honestly “taste like chicken.” I’m hoping this fills me with the strength to wrassle a Croc once I get to Darwin.
Anyways- I’m only in Cairns for 3 nights, so I left tomorrow completely open to just wander the city. Once I leave Cairns, I start 10 straight days in the Outback, so I think having an easy, deadly animal-less day might be in order ☺!
Cheers,
MB
