Ginger Without Borders

When you tell anyone you are going to Australia, they almost always ask first, “Are you going to visit the Great Barrier Reef?” It is only the world’s largest coral reef, and we love to snorkel, so the answer from us was an emphatic yes. While we could have toured the southern end of the GBR from Brisbane, but we chose to fly the 1,200 mile to Cairns (pronounced “Cans”) in northern Queensland to the middle of the GBR. Australia as a land mass is actually larger than the continental US and Brisbane is the capital of the province of Queensland. To understand the size of Queensland, Brisbane to Cairns is the same distance as Kansas City to Raleigh. We landed in Cairns and then caught a shuttle for the 40 mile drive further north to Port Douglas along the shoreline of the Coral Sea.

We had to wake early (which is actually not that hard since our bodies are still adjusting to the time change – we are usually awake when the sun comes up at 6am) to walk down to the marina for our trip to the outer reef. As we passed through the lobby, we heard a shuttle driver saying to the receptionist “Well they must have overslept.” When we checked in with the tour company, they said “Oh good, we thought you missed the shuttle.” So much for the travel agent instructions that omitted this little detail. It was an easy walk, so no harm, no foul.

Our vessel was a three level catamaran with about 50 folks almost equally divided between snorkelers and divers. After about an hour on the water, we arrived at the outer GBR. No sign of land anywhere, but the coral was visible through the clear blue water. We were at low tide and the water was barely a foot above the reef. The coral is very sharp and any cuts quickly become infected, so we were instructed to swim along the face of the reef wall and not on top of the reef. The face of the wall dropped off steeply to over 30 feet in some places but at many it was a gradual slope into the depths.

We have had the opportunity to snorkel in a lot of places, but the different types and colors of the coral and the size and variety of the tropical fish were amazing. We were fortunate to have a calm sea, so the visibility was stunning.

We had such a great experience with the Calypso Snorkel and Dive folks that we signed up for their Saturday tour of the Low Island, a sandy coral cay we passed on the way to the outer reef. On the Island, you snorkel from the beach to the smaller reefs surrounding the cay. These reefs were already badly bleached when they were scrubbed by Typhoon Debbie in 2017. But the coral are regrowing and the fish have returned. The Island’s reefs are dominated by 15 species of soft coral whose feathery tentacles make them resemble sea anemones.

On Friday, we took a shuttle back down to Cairns to travel back in time to the age of the dinosaurs at the world’s oldest tropical rain forest. It is best viewed from above with the gondolas.

The rain forest is home to all types of ancient fern trees. Many of them are as potentially as harmful as the wildlife of Australia. These ferns were used by the native folks for fishhooks.

We returned on the historic Kuranda Scenic Railroad, a narrow gauge track begun in 1886 and opened in 1891. Built largely by hand by Irish and Italian workers, it is an Australian Engineering Landmark. Now powered by diesel engines, some of the carriages date back to 1909. It follows the ridge above the Barron River gorge, sacred to the aboriginal folks. One of the two diesel engines is decorated with an image of the Carpet Snake that they believe created the gorge.

This has been the most hectic part of our journey so far because our Thursday ad Friday tours required us to be up early and back late to the apartment. But today’s snorkel to the Low Island ended at lunch so we were finally able to enjoy the pool at the apartment.

Tomorrow we fly south to the capital of Australia, Adelaide. And Lena, I have not even used 1 gig of data yet.

PS., Lena, we added the Low Island snorkel, so we spent some more of your inheritance. And the Calypso staff phtographer called us the “cute couple” when we were selecting the photo of us at the outer reef, so I don’t think I am in any trouble with Mom yet.