Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Hot and humid! Cairns- a touristy urban center where many people start their dive adventure. We were no exception. Cairns is full of hotels, info centers, travel agents, and internet cafes. We left our bags at Taka Dive, our live-aboard operator, and walked around town to get our hostel and rainforest trips set up before boarding our boat...
Our 4-day dive trip was excellent! We did 9 dives and the great barrier reef was a feast to our eyes - amazing technicolor coral amidst an equally colorful array of fish and marine creatures of all sizes and shapes including sharks and turtles. Our favorite spot was Steve's Bommie.
We met a lot of fun and interesting people from around the world~ Ina from Switzerland, David and Luisa from Barcelona, Susana from Dubai! Surprisingly many were also on long-term travel like us. We now have a few more friends and places we have been invited to visit in the near future :) Also worth noting is that Taka Dive's meals were quite good-far better than we expected!-our chef was amazing, whipping up yummy meals for 30 divers with hearty appetites all by herself.
After diving we headed up to Daintree National rainforest park. Along the way we did a daintree river cruise looking for crocodiles (saw 2!) and had a guided nature walk on the marrdja boardwalk; we had a very knowledgeable guide who taught us all about mangroves and the raintree habitat and how aboriginees used many of the plants.
We stayed a night at the Cape Tribulation Beach House, nice little hotel. The beach was beautiful and relatively untouched. It was neat to see rainforest meet the beach. We walked a little, but not too far as we were told a crocodile was spotted nearby not long ago! At dinner, we had our first taste of kangaroo, which tastes a lot like lean, slightly gamey beef - yum! We also did a night tour where we saw all sorts of night critters-frogs, lizards, and snakes (yikes! Not my (Juls) favorite)).
After our night in the rainforest, we headed back to Cairns. We stopped in Mossman Gorge, which is a natural swimming hole (croc free!), and Port Douglas, a small port town turned into a Sausalito-like resort town. There we discovered Peter lick's photography; he's a famous Aussie capturing shots of scenic Australia and and our own canyons including the Grand Canyon- a little reminder of home :).
Our only unfortunate incident was that upon returning to Cairns, we went to the doctor and found out x had ruptured his eardrum-so no more diving for x :)
Our 4-day dive trip was excellent! We did 9 dives and the great barrier reef was a feast to our eyes - amazing technicolor coral amidst an equally colorful array of fish and marine creatures of all sizes and shapes including sharks and turtles. Our favorite spot was Steve's Bommie.
We met a lot of fun and interesting people from around the world~ Ina from Switzerland, David and Luisa from Barcelona, Susana from Dubai! Surprisingly many were also on long-term travel like us. We now have a few more friends and places we have been invited to visit in the near future :) Also worth noting is that Taka Dive's meals were quite good-far better than we expected!-our chef was amazing, whipping up yummy meals for 30 divers with hearty appetites all by herself.
After diving we headed up to Daintree National rainforest park. Along the way we did a daintree river cruise looking for crocodiles (saw 2!) and had a guided nature walk on the marrdja boardwalk; we had a very knowledgeable guide who taught us all about mangroves and the raintree habitat and how aboriginees used many of the plants.
We stayed a night at the Cape Tribulation Beach House, nice little hotel. The beach was beautiful and relatively untouched. It was neat to see rainforest meet the beach. We walked a little, but not too far as we were told a crocodile was spotted nearby not long ago! At dinner, we had our first taste of kangaroo, which tastes a lot like lean, slightly gamey beef - yum! We also did a night tour where we saw all sorts of night critters-frogs, lizards, and snakes (yikes! Not my (Juls) favorite)).
After our night in the rainforest, we headed back to Cairns. We stopped in Mossman Gorge, which is a natural swimming hole (croc free!), and Port Douglas, a small port town turned into a Sausalito-like resort town. There we discovered Peter lick's photography; he's a famous Aussie capturing shots of scenic Australia and and our own canyons including the Grand Canyon- a little reminder of home :).
Our only unfortunate incident was that upon returning to Cairns, we went to the doctor and found out x had ruptured his eardrum-so no more diving for x :)
Labels: Australia, Cairns, Daintree, diving, Great Barrier Reef, honeymoon, scuba
posted by Xavier at 8:43 PM
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