Great Barrier Reef

For my birthday this year, Travis treated me to a trip to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland.  We started off with a drive up to Mossmon Gorge and Daintree Rainforest.  It's plenty warm there, and there are a number of sugar cane fields along the way.  In Daintree, we found a place to stop for a river cruise on an electric boat... touted as the "Daintree's quietest boat."  And low and behold, we saw a good-sized croc as we cruised along.  He was about 2.5 meters, and I think that's about 8ft!

Later in the day, we stopped through Port Douglas for a nice meal at Nautilus Restaurant.  It was sort of like having dinner in a fancy treehouse.  The trees are grown up and very lush, and there was a lovely deck set up with outdoor seating.  It was some of the best seafood I've had.

The next day, we took a boat ride out to the Great Barrier Reef.  The first dive point was 2.5 hrs from the Cairns harbour, and unfortunately, the weather started to turn on us once we reached our first stop.  Luckily, it doesn't matter if there's rain in the water... You're already wet!  

And we didn't run across anything that would kill us.  The guides said it was unlikely we would see sharks, and the jellyfish that would kill us stay near the shore line.  He did mention that the ones at the reef would definitely pack a pretty harsh sting though.  Actually, his story went something like this...  "These guys won't kill you, but they put my friend in the hospital for 3 days on pain killers.  And he's a pretty big guy.  Anybody want a stinger suit for $7?"  Needless to say, almost every arm on the boat went up!  Best $7 I've spent in a while, and it had sun protection too!  Can't be too careful around here...

The fish were very cool and quite colorful.  The pictures don't do them justice.  After snorkeling, we had lunch provided then went on to another dive point then back to the harbour.  It was surprisingly reasonably priced for a full day of boat food and snorkeling.  Then, we got to sail back.  Quite cool!