I had very low expectations about what the Great Barrier Reef would be like. In fact I hadn't really even thought about it much at all. I knew we would do a tour out to the reef but that was as far as I had thought with regards to this particular wonder of the world. I think they call the Houston Astrodome is a wonder of the world too but I don't think much about it either. We've also been to a few neat places and seen some pretty sweet reef and fish life already so how much different could it be?

This thing is HUGE! I was not prepared for how much coral life there actually is. We made two stops with our "Rum Runner" tour boat (we chose the company on that basis alone). The first stop was a fairly shallow spot so there was some good light penetration into the water. Fantastic. The colors, shapes, textures, sizes. Just beautiful. There were sandy patches between huge outcroppings of coral which allowed you to swim around these structures and check out what was living in there. Amazing huge clams. I'm talking the size of ME clams! Like from the cartoons. Deep purple in color and their mouths opening trying to suck in little tidbits from the water. Other coral bits, bright blue, purple, 1970's mellow green (like the color of my favourite leisure shirt at home). Off white corals that looked like they had melted in the oven, sort of as if cauliflower were made of wax and then melted.

At the second stop the water was deeper and the light not as bright but the sheer amount was incredible. We were snorkelling over an area the size of a football field. There was one mushroom-looking number that was almost the size of our house, just on its own. At the edge of the field was what they described as a coral cliff. Since Baebs was scuba diving instead of just snorkelling she got to go down the side of this cliff and look at all of the little creatures hanging out in the nooks and crannies. There was lots of fish life too with my personal highlights being a fairly large fella in a leopard print number. Edith Prickley - hello! We also saw a huge sea Wrasse that was about 1.2 meters long and about 75 cm's high. Decked out in green and purple colors. Big fellas. There were lots of other fish, but not too much that we hadn't had the pleasure of seeing before, but as you may have noticed, my highlight was really the coral. Sorry but we've got no pictures of the reef adventures. They wouldn't do them justice anyways. Just close your mind and imagine the most beautiful unearthly thing you can and you'll be close.

We're leaving the Cairns area and heading slowly south inland now in hopes of finding a bit better weather as there a bit of a storm warming going on and we've had a couple nights of pretty heavy rain. We felt so bad for our neighbours in one campground we wanted to invite them over to have a glass of port with us, but they looked too wet to invite them into our dry, warm little oasis. Hey, who am I, mother Theresa? Besides, we were low on port, but I did feel bad for them and their increasingly webbed feet. Well, until the next time, love from the road, Jason & Baebs