One of the main draws of Australia is undoubtedly the Great Barrier Reef. This is why we couldn’t possibly do a trip to Oz without a stop in Cairns for a scuba diving adventure! Cairns isn’t only great for its quick access to the reef – it is also home to lush rainforests and abundant sunshine, so we scheduled three days here to allow some time for both relaxation as well as adventure.
Our first day was dedicated to the rainforest and wildlife. We rented a car and drove north to the Wildlife Habitat and the Daintree Rainforest. The Wildlife Habitat was a small park where you can walk around amongst the animals and feed the kangaroos. We loved doing this so much at Phillip Island near Melbourne, so we really wanted to do it again! This park was much smaller and the kangaroos weren’t really interested in eating our food, so it was a little bit of a bummer, but still a fun experience. There were plenty of beautiful birds, a giant alligator, and we were able to hold one of the koalas!
We also went to an area of the Daintree Rainforest called the Mossman Gorge, which was a great hiking spot that we visited for a few hours. The rainforest was lush and the gorge was full of swimmers!
Our second day was the much anticipated trip to the Great Barrier Reef! We had never been scuba diving before, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do two introductory dives here, and it turned out to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life. We didn’t see much of the famous marine life that we hoped for (turtles, clown fish, sharks, etc.), but the coral reef here was so much larger and more grand than I expected. It was unbelievably beautiful! We were out on the boat for the whole day and visited 2 different spots in the reef (there are a couple thousand reefs in the entire reef system, so we have just a few more to go back and see!).
The grand finale of our time in Cairns was spent at the hotel pool. We were about a week into the trip at this point and were craving some R&R!
On to our last stop – Sydney!
The Great Fekspedition 
Kelly, I just went through my mail boxes and found two unopened email’s in my vacation folder. I must have put them there and forgot about them. I just say Cairns and Sydney posts! Very nice! You have a great camera, that can go underwater? Wow.
On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 7:57 PM, The Great Fekspedition wrote:
> The Great Fekspedition posted: “One of the main draws of Australia is > undoubtedly the Great Barrier Reef. This is why we couldn’t possibly do a > trip to Oz without a stop in Cairns for a scuba diving adventure! Cairns > isn’t only great for its quick access to the reef – it is also home to” >
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Thanks! We use a GoPro for the underwater photos, it works pretty well!
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