Today we visited the barrier reef. We had been keeping our fingers crossed regarding the weather as rain would have spoilt it. Another early start, up at 6.30, thought we'd left all that behind with work! Anyway, we dragged ourselves out of bed and headed for the boat. Clearly we have been spoilt on previous boat trips in Turkey as we were expecting a small catamaran taking perhaps 10-15 people to the reef. Sadly it turned out to be a huge boat which we had to share with about 200 others, the majority of which were Japanese and French...After my initial moans and groans about how hard done by we were (yes, Steph again!) I began to enjoy the sail to the reef. Stephen made some friends during the English safety briefing whilst I decided to listen to it in French to see what I could still understand. I was pleased to be able to follow most of it!

The journey to the reef took about 2 hours which surprised us as we had always thought it was visible from Cairns. The sun came out again for us and we were quite excited to see what was down there by the time we arrived. First of all we took a submersible trip (as I was unsure about the snorkelling). This was pretty cool as we got to see the different corals and fish close up. It was very colourful but sadly we didn't see any sharks or turtles. We did briefly glimpse a Mantaray which appeared to be flying through the sea and away into the shadows. That was pretty impressive. Back on dry land Stephen then tried the snorkelling. He had bought a waterproof case for his IPhone so took that with him. He tells me that this was a great experience and the fish were playing with him, swimming around his legs. He diced with death by failing to wear a stinger suit but they were not the most flattering of outfits so I don't really blame him! I stayed on deck and soaked up the sun and views of Michaelmas cay, a bird sanctuary on the reef. Later I watched Stephen's video footage of his snorkelling experience (sadly we can not get on the blog)

After heading back to Cairns we enjoyed a fab meal on the esplanade which was very welcome given that I had not had any lunch that day. A couple of drinks later we headed back to the resort. Not overly impressed with the nightlife in Cairns-caters too much to the 20 something backpacker we feel and not very cheap either!