Our weekend in Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

Well, Matt’s still not working. Tomorrow, however, we should hear about whether or not his medical license was approved by the government. Once that’s done he should be able to start work in a day or two. And since Matt has all this time off, we decided to take advantage of the situation and go on a little road trip.

We left Townsville Thursday morning and drove to Cairns. Along the way we stopped at a number of waterfalls and took our time admiring how the scenery changed from the dry outback to a tropical rainforest. That night we walked along the Esplanade in Cairns and had Mediterranean food for dinner. Matt and I were both surprised at how big Cairns is. It’s a very Vegas-like feel, a little too touristy for our tastes. But still fun.

The next morning we got up early and drove to the dive shop where we left our car. The boat left the dock around 10 and by 11 we were at the Great Barrier Reef. Here’s a link to our location on Google maps (and try satellite view): http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-16.4601,145.9854&ll=-16.4601,145.9854&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

Our first dive was spectacular. We saw a few sharks immediately and a huge wrasse, which is a grouper-like fish. This thing was seriously as big as we were. The guide was feeding it bread, which gave us a chance to pet it. (We didn’t get a photo at the time, but you can see one at this link: http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/848605.html). After one additional dive we transferred off the first boat onto the live-aboard boat, Ocean Quest, where we spent the night.

Over the following 24 hours we did 5 additional dives, including a night dive. By the time we were done, we were both completely exhausted. We've inserted one of the shark photos from the dives here, but we're also going to be uploading photos to an online album. We'll post the link to it in another blog entry.

Saturday evening when we got back to shore we cleaned up and went out for a very memorable dinner at a place called Ochre. After Matt had a couple of local brews (Fat Yak and Redback, which is named for Australia’s deadly spider), we had crocodile for our first course. We both thought it was excellent, and was only slightly better than our main course, which consisted of emu and kangaroo.

The next day we headed inland and upwards to the highlands of the Atherton Tablelands. The drive was beautiful and passed through both farmland and rainforest. We had our eyes open for cassowaries the whole time but to no avail. We stumbled upon a great little tea house in Millaa Millaa for lunch which overlooked the hills and forests. In the evening, we ended up camping in Mission Beach, a cute little beach town north of Townsville. In our attempt to pack lightly, we had left behind our sleeping pads. We painfully regretted that decision.

This morning we packed up, grabbed a coffee and a scone, and drove 2.5 hours south to our Townsville home. We still don’t have a permanent place to live, and Matt still doesn’t have a job. Life couldn’t be better.