Great Barrier Reef

Friday 27th November – Wednesday 2nd December. We had a 12 p.m. flight to catch from Canberra to Cairns via Brisbane. I am ultra cautious with timings and therefore I was rather concerned when Julie coolly told us that she had an appointment with her bank manager at 8 a.m. and that we would be leaving Greenethrope at 9 a.m. That would be fine if the journey did not normally take 2½ hours (if you have no hold ups)!! It was the most stressful few hours of my trip with us eventually arriving at the terminal with 10 minutes to spare. The laid back Julie and amused Sheila seemed to revel in my obvious discomfort!

Our ultimate destination was Port Douglas, 80 km north of Cairns on the Queensland coast. We were moving from the dry heat of Dubbo/Greenethorpe to the humid heat of tropical Australia. Queensland is known as the place where Australia goes on holiday and has the incredible natural wonder of the Great Barrier Reef on its coast line. During the 1800’s the area would not be your favoured destination as it was home to some of the worst convicts in Australia’s penal system.
I did not take much convincing to include these few days of leisure in our itinerary. Sheila’s argument of “when we are older and greyer, we will not want to reflect on another abattoir visit, but rather the experience of seeing the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef” was a fairly easy one to agree with whole heartedly!

The Great Barrier Reef is often described as Australia’s crowning glory and stretches 1300 miles in a mosaic of more than 2900 distinct reefs covering 90,000 square miles. We experienced the reef in all its wonder by taking a 35 minute helicopter flight 55 km offshore to a diving platform. The flight took us over the Daintree tropical forest, a home for crocodiles, hence the ‘flight over’, rather than the ‘walk through’.

The experience on the reef, like many things on this trip is difficult to describe in words. We had the chance to snorkel in clear blue sea with the incredible coral formations just below the surface, and a colourful spectrum of fish swimming within touching distance. Sheila had the fortunate experience of stroking a two foot long fish which came close to her with the encouragement of a diver swimming below where we were snorkeling. A memorable few hours, with the long boat ride back to port in a catamaran giving us time to collect our thoughts and savour one of the most beautiful parts of the world.

We left Port Douglas, refreshed, and having enjoyed the laid back approach to life of this sleepy tourist destination.