Great Barrier Reef

At the end of our PADI Open Water course, the book kept emphasizing that you should't let your certification be the end of your diving experience. Go Places, Meet People, Do things, it says. 

After two months of our certification, and as celebration of our 3-year (!) anniversary, John and I were finally going to take advantage of having the Great Barrier Reef at our doorstep. We were ready to go places, meet people, and do things. It was time to dive! 

We picked a great day--sunny, warm, and barely a cloud in the sky. We elected to just do a day trip with one of the local operators, as one of the overnight business we had wanted to use out of Cairns discontinued their overnight trips as they found it was more profitable to sell their boat to an offshore-mining company in Western Australia to use as a live-aboard for miners. Shame, but what can you do.

However, it still turned out to be an awesome day! The great thing about being a certified diver on one of these trips is that there are so few of you! A good 50 people or so turned up that day and out of them, half were just snorkeling, the other 20 were just doing an "introductory dive" experience, which left just 6 of us as certified divers. It was great as they had all the equipment prepped and ready for us, a dive master who prepped us on each site and oversaw the group, and we were the first ones off the boat at each site and the last ones back on. In the one day we were able to complete three dives with a bottom time of about 45 minutes.

The company we chose made trips out to the Agincourt Ribbon Reef System. It's located on the edge of the Coral Sea, near the continental shelf, and so the water and coral here is so much more pristine than the sites located closer to the mainland. 

Even the 1 1/2 hour trip out to the site was nice! As it was a calm morning there was very few waves, making it a nice smooth ride. During this time of year it's also whale season as the whales make their may up north to the warmer waters. Lucky for us, we were able to spot some, and even luckier for us--they came up right to the boat! It was a frenzy of excitement as everyone clamored to one side of the boat to the get a look at them. Even the staff was excited as they said they had never seen the whales come that close before! It was awesome! And of course, I had my camera with me to capture the magical experience:

Now, after that exciting start to the morning it was time to get ready for our first dive site called "The Anybodies." After two months out of the water, it took a bit of re-getting used to the whole breathing underwater thing. And as usual, I had some issues from the start with my mask, so I had to quickly resurface, adjust everything, and start again. But after that, everything was magical!

In preparation for this trip, and for potential future endeavors, John went out and bought himself a nice, new (expensive) toy called a GoPro. He bought the one especially for diving and got all the bells and whistles that go along with it. A special dive housing to prevent vignetting, a special grip, and a red-light filter to make the colors show up true to life. 

So, instead of telling you about the magic of diving the Great Barrier Reef (and it's truly the only way to really experience it--forget snorkeling!) I will let you see it for yourself!

Click on the link to see it in HD!

 Great Barrier Reef Video!

I was also able to snap a few photos with my dingy little Kodak underwater film camera. And as a photojournalist I must say my skills trying to use the thing were quite lacking, as trying to take photos while scuba diving is a bit more of a challenge, but I got a few decent shots (with the help of color correction in Photoshop) that I can share:

After that wonderful day, John and I cannot wait to go back out again!

But to cap a wonderfully fantastic anniversary celebration, we ended the night with a nice italian dinner at a great restaurant in town. As we were waiting outside our apartment for the town shuttle (that is notoriously unreliable) a nice Porsche Cayenne pulls up with a mother and a daughter our age inside and they ask if we are going to town. We say yes--so they offer to give us a lift! Turns out they are locals and said that we looked like such a nice young couple that they would hate for us to have to wait ages for the bus. Such nice people! It also turns out that the daughter is a graphic designer and works for a company that produces all the signs in Port Douglas. John tells her he went to school for graphic design and she says she will give him her card as she may have some work for him! What a wonderfully serendipitous occurrence. 

So after the amazing day we had we capped it off with an amazing lamb dinner and after expending so much energy that day--an amazing night's sleep!

Now, why couldn't have Australia been like this all along??

Chasing Waterfalls

The Atherton Tablelands is a large area to the southwest of Port Douglas, just on the other side of the Great Dividing Range. On our next day off, this was our elected destination for the day. We made the pretty, yet nauseatingly windy, drive over the mountains to the first quaint village of Kuranda. Accessible by a train from Cairns (which would have been a much better journey for my stomach), it's a quaint village town with a local market, shops, and scenic views. Our stop here was for the first waterfall of the day, Barron Falls. A nice boardwalk through some woods led to a lovely lookout of the very large falls:

Moving on, our next stop of the day was further south in a town called Mareeba, known as the coffee-growing capital of Australia. There is a large local business there, called Coffee Works, who grows and produces a large number of coffee blends for the Far North Queensland region. Entry into the museum also allows you to taste every single type of roast they produce, as well as all of the chocolate they make as well. Sounds like a good time to me! After trying heaps of different style coffees and chocolates, we checked out the espresso machine museum as well. Some guy spent the bulk of his life traveling the world collecting different espresso and coffee machines from different eras and places. It was an interesting, eclectic exhibit, and after spending some time walking around it was time to grab some lunch--and a coffee, of course. 

The next stop as we headed south was just outside a town called Yungaburra. One of the more picturesque towns in the Tablelands region, but we didn't actually head into town--rather we stopped just outside to see a great example of a curtain fig tree. Now, we had seen strangler figs in our walk through the Daintree and were told the tablelands had some even larger. Indeed, this one was particular large. It had begun around one tree, till that one toppled over, swallowing a second tree, and landing on the third. The result was a very large curtain fig:

After looking at trees, it was time to chase some more waterfalls! We headed further south where we could take a turn off that became a waterfall circuit. The first one we stopped at was very nice, as there was a large swimming hole in front that would be very nice on a hot day. However, being in the shade for the most part and the fact that the day was only about 75*, we decided against taking a dip in the very cool water. Reminded me a lot of our little swimming hole in Hawke's Bay, though. 

Next we headed to another falls where you could really only get a glance at the top. The road leading down and to the next falls was closed, so after this we had to call it a day. Lots of waterfall spotting!

Now, the highlight of the day came at the very end. I had read in our travel book that there was a platypus viewing station just outside Yungaburra along a river. So we headed back north to the viewing spot to try our luck! We arrived at about 4:30, far too early as you normally have to wait till dusk. So, we waited. Several people came, stopped for all of 5 seconds, and then left. Not going to spot a platypus that way, I assure you.

We headed a bit further down the river to a path that led under a bridge. It was a bit dark underneath, and we figured we would have a better chance here. We waited for a while and soon a foreign woman joined us in our stake out. It was soon interrupted when she pointed out that a snake was slithering its way toward us on some rocks. Our first snake spotting in Australia! (In the wild that is). We caught a picture of it, though John and I still debate about whether or not it was poisonous. I think not, but either way we didn't stick around to find out! 

We headed back up to the normal viewing platform and knew we were in the right place when a small tour bus pulled up with people wanting to catch a glimpse of some platypus. It was getting darker and closer to the time when they come out, and the tour guide sent a group of them to the spot down under the bridge. I didn't hear any screams so I assume the snake had come and gone, but to our luck they must have scared the platypus in our direction! All of a sudden we saw one swimming in the water! 

Now, John was lucky enough to catch some video of this elusive and fascinating creature!

It was such a great end to our day and we could finally cross platypus off the list! Now we just need to spot an echidna, tasmanian devil, and a dingo and our glimpses of native Australian animals in the wild will be almost complete.

Unfortunately we had the long and twisty, nauseating road back to Port Douglas ahead of us, but we treated ourselves to some yummy kebabs to end our day. 

Gotta love Chasing Waterfalls.