18th – 19th November 

Diving on the Great Barrier Reef!!!

I’d been looking forward to this day since I decided to add Australia into my trip – diving on the Great Barrier Reef, a once in a lifetime goal and a big fat bucket list tick! 

The coach picked me up early to travel up to Port Douglas, over an hour north of Cairns. As I was staying overnight in PD, I had all my stuff with me. I arrived at check in and left my big bag behind the desk and made my way on onto the huge catamaran called ‘SilverSonic’. It was by far the biggest dive and snorkel boat I’d been on, there must have been a couple of hundred people on board. It was all very well planned & executed and there was a great all you can eat buffet for lunch!

It took over an hour to get out to the Agincourt Ribbon Reef, the part of the reef we were diving. Before we arrived they called all the divers down to get our equipment sorted and ready to go. I recognised a face on the opposite side of the dive tanks and called out ‘Emma?!’ It was the manager from the Oh La La dive centre in the Perhentian Islands!!! What a weird coincidence!! I knew they were closing up for the season in October, but what were the chances she’d be doing fun dives on the GBR in the same place and on the same day as me?! Weird, but really cool to see her.

Dive 1: The Point

They docked the boat at the first dive site called ‘The Point’ and those diving went off first, followed by the snorkelers. The dive was really cool, we saw lots of coral, huge Mauri wrasse, a puffa fish and various others, but it wasn’t hugely different to the dives I’d done elsewhere, so far, and of course me being the pillock I am I’d forgotten to take my GoPro with me 🤦‍♀️. Still, our dive instructor Mitch was great at pointing cool stuff out and explaining things after. I also had a little snorkel for a few minutes to catch a glimpse of George, the gigantic Mauri wrasse who is always there and hangs curiously around the boat.

Dive 2: Stone Henge

We moved on to the second dive spot, ‘Stone Henge’ and things got a lot more exciting! I saw my first turtle during a dive, AND I had my GoPro with me this time! She was a female green turtle, beautiful, we followed her for a while before she disappeared into the deep blue. We also saw upside down jellyfish, a bump head parrot fish (which help the health of the reef by recycling the coral – eating it and dispersing it elsewhere) and Nemo!! True clown fish! Of course there were also loads of amazing colourful coral of all different shapes & sizes.

Dive 3: The Nursery

After lunch we continued on to the third dive site ‘The Nursery’ for our final dive of the day. This one also did not disappoint! We started in the shallow coral, which was pretty but nothing special, and then moved off a drop off point & around a huge coral mound that went down metres to the ocean floor. As we circled the mound we saw down to 18m depth, we saw incredible coral, giant clams, snappers, barracuda, box fish, a baby lion fish, bright pink anemones and there were 2 white tip reef sharks chillin on the ocean floor!! We didn’t get too close so as not to disturb them (don’t worry they don’t eat people!). They’re nocturnal hunters and so we’re just hanging around in the day, apparently it was uncommon to see 2, most sightings were just of the female, but they must have been a courting pair. To top it off we saw another female green turtle that swam right over my head!! 😆 It was AMAZING!!! 

It was a great and tiring day. I was dropped off at my hostel in Port Douglas afterwards and got hold of Steffi, who happened to be staying in the same place! I met her 2 friends and we had a wander to the port to see the sunset. I stopped off in the local Coles supermarket on the way home to grab something for dinner and ended up chatting to Mum & Dad about my amazing day for aaaaages on the phone, wandering round and ending up with hummus & carrots 😂. 

The Daintree and Cape Tribulation 🌴

Another hour and a half north of Port Douglas is the Daintree River, and further up from there, Cape Tribulation – apparently the only place on earth where the rainforest and reef meet. I met the girls in the morning with their hire car and we were on our way. To reach the area you need to cross the Daintree river, a little ferry comes across and loads a few cars at a time, reading the ‘Beware of the Crocodile’ signs as we boarded. 

We then spent the day exploring parts of Cape Tribulation, we went for a wander round rainforest boardwalks and reef lookouts, we swam in a natural (croc free) pool, where we just missed a glimpse of a wild cassowary (giant dinosaur looking bird), we went onto a couple of amazing beautiful beaches and finished our time off with ice cream, the flavours of which were made from tropical rainforest fruits, seasonal at the time – black sapote, wattleseed & mango 😋.

As we were heading back to Cairns the drive was a lot longer than on the way, so we left late afternoon and the girls kindly dropped me off back at bounce hostel. Checking into the room next door to where I’d stayed previously, I recognised another face, Emma was now staying in the same room!! With her sister Matilda, who had also been on the dive the day before! Again, freaky coincidence, but it was nice to see someone I sort of ‘knew’ at the hostel! I made dinner and got an early night after the last long couple of days.