Great Barrier Blog

Of course, the reason you go to Cairns is to ‘do’ the Great Barrier Reef. The reef, or more accurately series of reefs, stretch 2,000 kilometres along the north east of Australia, covering an area greater than the UK and Ireland put together. There are fringe reefs, ribbon reefs and patch reefs, with continental islands and coral cays, all sitting pretty in the coral sea. But if this all conjures up a calm, serene and shallow sea where gentle waves lap crystal clear, you need to think again. The reef aint an easy thing to reach or explore.
OK on a calm day it probably is, but you are still talking an hour and a half by boat to get to the outer reef, which is the best bit. The beautiful ribbon reefs are further still, over 40 miles offshore and far, far north – away from civilization completely.
Our first reef day was on one of the coral cays, a mere 45 minutes from Cairns. We thought we’d break ourselves in gently. But the sea thought otherwise: with 25-30 knot winds and 2 metre waves. Everyone gave us dire warnings that this was rough, and that we may want to think again, but we certainly hadn’t spent many hours flying and many (many!!) dollars getting here to simply stay home, in the tropical rains. Actually, it wasn’t that bad when dosed up with ginger and sea legs. Though some people were being quite sick, we as a family remained vom free, thankfully. Even though we got straight off the big boat, and onto a very small glass bottomed boat that pitched around the island for a half hour! We got our first glimpse of the reef, which was a bit, well, green: apparently a lot of sediment had been stirred up by the winds and rains. Appropriate really, as this was Green Island. You couldn’t see the true colours of the reef, but we did see sucker fish, parrot fish and lovely little seargent majors with their black and white stripes. The fish were everywhere, especially when we chucked food over the side! At the surface, their true colours were finally visible, and they are amazing.
Jenna looked a bit parky after all this, but was restored to stomach serenity with the aid of chocolate ice cream on our arrival at Green Island. Green Island is pretty idyllic, with a resort slap bang in the middle. The two big kids (and the biggest kid) went off immediately to snorkel from the beach, while us two little girls indulged in ice cream. I was having none of Jenna’s suggestion of simply swimming in the resort pool, however! We did get down to the beach, chocolate stained but happy, for a quick snorkel and swim, and Jen really got into snorkeling, bedecked with life jacket. This being a half day, we didn’t have hours and hours to explore, which was probably just as well with the sun finally beating down with a vengeance. The ride back felt positively smooth!
We gave ourselves a land break the next day, exploring the area of rainforest around Kuranda. This was a complete contrast to the reef – wet, hot and extremely humid. Jenna loved the butterfly farm, Rowan loved the markets. Joe and I loved the late breakfast and gallons of coffee to wake us up! We all enjoyed going through the forest, swamps and lakes in an army duck, spotting turtles and creepers, but no creepy crawlies this time. Everyone except yours truly also enjoyed the 7.5km cable car ride back down to Cairns. For me, this was an absolute nightmare, seeing me spending this gruesome 40 minutes with my head between my knees, whimpering when I dared look up at the huge drops to the canopy below and the sea in the distance. The wind howled through the cable car which swayed as we plummeted ever downwards, and my heart almost stopped when the cable car did, mid air! Joe was brilliant with me, helping me count down the 37 towers till we were there, and telling me quietly but firmly when to keep my head down. If Baz Luhrmann is right that you should do something everyday that scares you, I did pretty well in Cairns.