Australia 3 - Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

Cairns :

I'm not sure what I was expecting of Cairns.

The only reason I came here was for the Barrier Reef but when I checked out the Town/City I was quite impressed.
(I know it's classed as a City but it feels more like a Town !)

It was no surprise to find that Cairns is very commercial.

It seems like every third shop is a reef dive/tour agency.

But there's a great choice of restaurants and coffee shops.

It's really clean, nice and open and probably the most user friendly seaside resort I've been to.

Yes, the little dots in the background are swimmers ...
...  the infinity pool is that big

At low tide the sea disappears leaving miles of mud flats.

( Like Weston-Super-Mare only with lots of sunshine and palm trees !!).

So,  they installed what must be the biggest infinity pool I've ever seen
right on the sea front .... and there's no charges !!

This could explain the infinity pool ...    
         ... and why nobody swims in the sea !

There is a lovely boardwalk along the promenade all the way into the town and marina.





At various intervals along the way there are outdoor gymnasiums to get the weight off   ...                                            
                                           ...   and  "help youself"  gas operated barbecue facilities to put it all back on again !!



free and continual live bands performing  (all the time I was here at least ).   You just turn up, lay in the sun and enjoy.

And there's absolutely no charge for any of it,  unbelievable !
It's a long way from Margate and Morecambe !

The Great Barrier Reef

"Old Geezer" is top right 

Well, I suppose you could be forgiven for thinking that these are all scenes from the set of the latest James Bond movie !!!






But I don't think Daniel Craig has too much to worry about just yet  !!

It took me about 30 minutes to fight my way into this wet suit !

Although the sun was shining, the wind was up, the seas were high and swimming was very difficult.

I had hired an underwater camera and carrying this strapped around one wrist didn't help !

On my first dive I couldn't even get from the boat to the reef because the currents were so strong.



Dive instructor Lauren arrived with lifebelt and rope to tow me to the reef, how embarrassing !  Good job nobody at home knows !!!

But then suddenly Lauren was pointing downwards and this is one of my first underwater pics.

A massive ray  !




I was having enough trouble swimming against the currents so I really couldn't concentrate too much on the camera controls.
Zoom and flash come later but slowly my confidence was growing.
The coral was magnificent and it's a shame my photography didn't do it justice.

As I gained in confidence I could stay underwater for longer periods and avoid being thrown around by the waves.

And the photography got better.

On the boat they told us that the only sharks we were likely to see were reef sharks and that they wouldn't bother us !   Yeah  right !!!

It was thanks to Lauren once again for pointing otherwise it would have just swum below me and I would never have known.
This one was probably about  2  to  2.5 metres long.
I've never seen a fish this big and definitely not in the same swimming pool as me !!

The next day I had 15 minutes scuba and saw 2 more just laying on the sea bed and I wasn't quite so bothered.
But this one today was moving ... and I froze !    

Swimming with Sharks ....  another one to cross off my  "bucket list"  !!

                            o