CAIRNS

So glad we had a window seat on the flight to Cairns as the view of the reef as we came into land was pretty special.  The  hotel was only a 10 minute taxi drive from the tiny airport, so we quickly booked in, and headed out to explore.

The place was full of healthy, sun tanned people (and us!) promenading along the seafront.  The Lagoon, a vast area in the shape of Queensland, filled with shallow water and waterfalls, is a great place to cool off.

The Esplanade was buzzing with restaurants, bars and backpacker hostels.   We found this place to eat ... not sure how accurate the advertising is, but the food tasted good. 

Cairns is located on the tropics and has a warm humid climate, with tropical monsoons likely at this time of year.  The forecast was for thunderstorms with sunny spells   As it turned out it only rained in the evening and overnight.  

The next day we took a trip to the Great Barrier Reef.  The coach picked us up early for the scenic coastal drive to Port Douglas and from there the Quicksilver Catamaran took us to the outer Agincourt reef platform.

We had booked on the introductory snorkelling course with a marine biologist.

After the safety briefing, which mentioned strong currents, stingers and sharks, we did begin to wonder if this was a good idea, but decided that we'd come this far so, 'let's just do it' ...

and we are so glad we did.  What an fantastic experience.  The scale, beauty and diversity of the place is amazing.  The photos do not do it justice and the fish are camera shy.

Snorkelling is now one of our favourite pastimes.

We would have loved to have stayed longer in Cairns ... the sign at the airport for our flight back to Brisbane summed up the feel of the place.