The Great Barrier Reef was the reason we had decided to learn to dive, so we could not leave Cairns without doing at least one dive. The problem was there are so many reefs to dive and so many different boats, so it took us a while to decide which to do. We chose to do a live aboard for 4 days and 3 nights on a boat called Taka which was visiting the 'Cod Hole' supposedly one of the best dive sites on the reef. It was well over our budget but it was an op...

We arrived in Cairns after our short flight from Alice Springs. We did not do much on the 1st day here except book the trips for the following 2 days and watch ' Children of Men' at the movies - pretty good. Our first excursion was on the Karunda scenic railway. This was a 1 and 3/4 hour trip to the village of Karunda. The scenery was fantastic as we wove our way up the mountain to our final destination. Kuranda had a very 'hippy' feel about ...