East Coast Travels - Great Barrier Reef

22nd of May

We were in Cairns from the 20th until the 24th of May and on the 22nd we had our Great Barrier Reef day trip. We got picked up from out hotel at 7.10am and went on the 1 Day Outer Barrier Reef Experience from Cairns tour. We booked through the company Reef Free and the tour company was called Reef Experience. It cost us $185 per person and it was one of the cheaper tours that saw more than one location.  It was a pretty large group, but it didn't feel busy as the boat was huge and there was a large crew.

When we first got on board we were told the water was going to be pretty "choppy"... great. I literally developed a fear of "choppy" water back at the Whitsundays and started panicking massively. The crew walked around with motion sickness tablets - just in case - and that made it even worse. We decided to get some since we didn't want to ruin our trip by being sick. It took us about an hour to reach the first reef and the water was pretty calm the whole way. There were definitely some waves, and I did get the "help I'm falling" feeling, but I freaked myself out more than I should have. It was NOTHING like at the Whitsundays. During the hour and a half we had a breakfast barbecue, a demonstration about snorkelling and diving, a photographer introduction and also a marine biology presentation.

We didn't realise this to start off with, but diving was included in our price! We thought we were only going snorkelling. We had a quick intro to diving and got in the water. I had never done any diving before and freaked out. The fact that I panicked about the "choppy" water and then going into the water wasn't the best.. I couldn't breathe! For some reason I found it incredibly difficult to breathe with the diving gear and after trying about 4 times, I really began to panic and decided it would be best to get out of the water, rather than push myself and freak out when I'm a few meters under water! Anyway, my boyfriend still went ahead and loved it! He studied Marine Environmental Science at university so he was right in his element. (photo taken by on board photographer)

Everyone was incredibly kind and helpful when I got out the water, I calmed down and decided to go snorkelling. The reef we were at, Norman Reef, is a favourite of all the crew, this is because it's a really shallow reef. Obviously the pro of diving is that you can get right up to everything, with snorkelling I got pretty close too, at some parts I really had to make sure I was completely horizontal or else I'd be kicking the reef! The photo to the left shows how shallow it was! (photo taken by on board photographer)

Some areas, however, were incredibly deep! Especially at the second reef we went to, you'd look down and all you see is blue! It was so incredible to see the coral reef, there was so much colour and so many different types of fish! We took the GoPro out with us, but unfortunately they really wash out any colour and make it blue, I think it's because the GoPro doesn't have a flash. In the photo to the right you can see a parrot fish, they are amazing rainbow coloured fish and they were everywhere.

I'm not sure how long we spent at each reef, but I think the first one was over an hour and the second one was 40 minutes? In between the first and second reef we had a delicious lunch. At our second reef we decided to take part in the Marine Biology tour. This cost $20 per person extra, but it was definitely worth it. We swam around with the marine biologist on board and she showed us the different types of species of fish and corals. She picked up a sea cucumber too and we each got to hold it. It's surprising how heavy they are when you hold them above water! The tour was about 20 minutes (I think) so we still had a bit of time to swim around.

You also had a chance to take a trip on a glass bottom boat, we skipped on that and decided to continue snorkelling instead. On our way back to Cairns we had some more snacks and had a chance to look at all the photos the photographer took. I bought three photos for $40 and received a CD full of photos of the reef which is really nice.

This was such an amazing trip, and 100% better than the one at the Whitsundays. The crew kept us entertained the whole time and at the reef we had a bit of freedom to swim around and do what we want. It was also great that we went to two different reefs rather than staying at the same one the whole time. Everything was very well organised, and even though it was a huge group of people, it didn't feel busy.

After the trip we were dropped off at our hotel at about 18.00.

This is my last East Coast blog post! Although I might still do a summery of all the places. We had such an amazing time on our East Coast travels, I'd say my favourite places were Sydney, Byron Bay, Brisbane, Fraser Island and the Great Barrier Reef. My least favourite was Port Macquarie, only because it was so small and it was really just a stop over. We travelled up the coast incredibly quick, doing it in 24 days wasn't difficult, but very very exhausting. The places we've seen were absolutely amazing and I loved everything. We tried out completely new and exciting things like a the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb and a helicopter ride around Brisbane. It was an amazing end to our stay in Australia.

We flew out of Cairns International Airport to Tokyo on the 24th of May at 13.20. We bought the tickets in the Jetstar Easter sale and only cost us $249 each. Incredibly cheap. We ended up flying over the Great Barrier Reef which was beautiful and so unexpected! What an amazing end to Australia.

East Coast Travels - Cairns

20th - 24th May

We left Townsville nice and early at 7 in the morning on our way to our final stop: Cairns. Townsville and Cairns are the only two placed we have breakfast included with our hotel, I probably had the best breakfast EVER in Townsville. It was a bittersweet moment getting on our last (ever?) Greyhound bus.

The whole journey has been so organised and easy and I definitely recommend checking out the Greyhound busses if you're thinking of going travelling. There was never any problems with luggage as they organise the bags in the bottom of the coach to where people get off. Everyone gets checked before getting on the bus, and there is a final head count at most stops to check if they're missing anyone. When we had our 4 hour stop over in Hervey Bay, the bus driver had a small space where everyone could put their luggage so they don't have to carry it around with them. The best thing about the greyhound was the free wifi. We didn't have wifi on all the buses, but when we did it was great. We didn't have wifi in many of the hotels, and if we did there was a ridiculous limit... Anyway, our last bus was really nice, a brand new 7 days old bus.

We arrived in Cairns at about 1, we had a lovely stopover somewhere along the way.  I forgot the name but it was a beautiful place. The bus driver told us to keep an eye on the time because you can easily go for a stroll and miss the bus... which has happened many times before. These were the signs for the toilets, how funny?!

We stayed in Cairns for 4 days and I didn't actually take any photos until our last evening.. oops! Cairns was a little different than we expected, for a place that has the Great Barrier Reef and the Rainforest, the town wasn't the greatest. It wasn't bad at all, but for some reason we were expecting a city so were a little disappointed when we saw how small it was.

We stayed at a place called Cairns Queens Court, it was the cheapest hotel out of everything and was less than $100 a night. It was about a 10-15 minute walk to the town centre. The hotel was nice, the room was a decent size, there was a swimming pool (which didn't look like it was really for using) laundry facilities, and breakfast was included. We honestly spent most of our time at the hotel to catch up on all our sleep and prepare for Tokyo. From our hotel we walked down to the waterfront and from there walked along the promenade towards the town centre. It's a really lovely walk especially in the evening with the sunset. The photo above is looking away from the centre and the photo to the left is towards it. Cairns is surrounded by mountains which is a beautiful sight. Especially because while we were there the clouds were so low and curved over the tops of the mountains. You can kind of see it in the photo above. Although everyday it was really cloudy, it was incredibly hot and humid. It was around 27 degrees every day and drizzled every now and then, making it super humid.

When you're reach the centre along the promenade you get to the lagoon. It's similar as in Brisbane where they've been an artificial beach. On one side it's more like a swimming pool, whereas the other side has the artificial beach. As you can see from the photo, it's right on the waterfront. There are tons of free things to do in this area, the lagoon is free to swim in, there as sports classes there is free wife, etc.

Around this area are tons of restaurants, and of course our favourite Grill'd. It's literally amazing and the thing I'll probably miss most... We had our third final Grill'd here. Our first final one was in Melbourne, our second in Brisbane and now our real final burger. The prices were a bit more expensive here than in Melbourne or Brisbane though, which was strange. If you want to go out to dinner, make sure you have an early or a late dinner, it's VERY busy at 7ish!

If you walk away from the water towards the restaurant and continue going up, you'll reach the shops. There are a couple shopping streets with random little tourist shops as well as well know brands. If you continue walking that way you'll eventually reach Cairn's Shopping Centre. It isn't massive but has a large range of shops, including a T2 store, the most amazing tea in Australia which has actually recently opened a store in London! Everybody going to Australia must stop in the T2 store since it's a very unique tea store, but also because they have tons of samples you can try. They're delicious.

Cairns also has a night market every night, it's located just off the promenade near the lagoon by the restaurants. It starts off with a food court and at the back of that is the entrance to the market. It's mainly souvenirs stalls selling everything kind of souvenir you can think of.

For three of the four days we just walked around Cairns and the shopping centre, buying any last souvenirs and enjoying our last couple days in Australia. On the 22nd we had our Great Barrier Reef trip which I'll blog about in the next post, it was incredible!