The first time I heard about Great Barrier Reef was during discussions about climate change. There were articles on how the global warming damaged the reef and how it can go extinct in few decades. That was when I got to know that the Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system, which can be seen from space. Ever since then, this place was there in my bucket list, but we never actively planned any trip. After moving to Australia, we had this on top of our minds and when my friend planned to visit us, we included this place in our trip.

Great Barrier Reef is an extremely large stretch of coral reef structure covering an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometers, located in the Coral sea beside the Queensland state. There are many destinations from where the reef can be reached and the most famous being Cairns, which is the main tourist hub. Cairns is also famous for it’s dense rain forests and it felt like a perfect destination choice for the GBR trip.

Day 1: Sydney to Cairns, Kuranda and Daintree Rain forest

The first thing that excites me about any place is its bird’s-eye view during landing and I expected to get a view of coral reefs during landing, similar to what we observed in Maldives. To my disappointment, the plane flew on land for most of the time and it reached the ocean just before landing, due to which I couldn’t get any coral reef view. I got a great view of rain forests during landing, which made me forget about reef and by the time we landed, I was more interested to visit rain forests than the reef. The forest landscape looked absolutely stunning and it felt as if the plane was about to land in the middle of a forest.

The city looked beautiful with lush green forests on one side and green water on the other side, as if the forest cast a shadow on the sea.

We hired a rental car and drove to a small town, Kuranda located in the rainforest around Cairns, which is quite popular one and touristy due to its proximity to Cairns. There were multiple options to explore the rainforest:- 1. Skyrail 2.Scenic railway 3. Self Drive. Skyrail is a gondola ride which glides few metres above the rainforest canopy. Scenic railway is a train ride in the rainforest which stops at the waterfall in between (The train operates only two times a day). We decided to drive directly to Kuranda in the interest of time and for the freedom to stop at multiple places along the way.

We parked our car at Kuranda and started on a 1km trail to reach Barron Falls lookout: https://www.queensland.com/en-au/journey/barron-falls-lookout-track-barron-gorge-national-park

The beautiful dense forest and variety of trees reminded me of Asia and it looked completely different from other National Parks around Sydney. It was an easy board walk with the description of trees provided along the way to increase the interest level of visitors.

We reached the Barron gorge waterfall lookout, where the train stop is located. The water level in the falls is pretty low due to dry season.

We enjoyed the forest walk and decided to drive to Cape Tribulation located in Daintree Rainforest after lunch. Daintree is located towards the north of Cairns, closer to Port Douglas. The drive from Cairns to Port Doughlas was an extremely scenic coastal drive for several kms.

From Port Douglas, the drive was mostly in the dense rainforest.

After a point, we reached a dead end of the road where we realized that we had to take a ferry to reach the other side of the forest. It was the surprise factor of our drive and I felt extremely excited to take a ferry ride sitting inside a car 😀

We finally reached Cape Tribulation beach, the point where the rain forest meets the reef. It is a special place where two world heritage areas meet. It was a beautiful and serene place. There was a track to go to the top of Cape Tribulation, but we couldn’t go there due to lack of sufficient time before sunset.

It felt so tempting to get into the beach there, but we were warned of salt water crocodiles(Salties) and Jelly fish in Cairns beaches during summer and there were clear warnings everywhere. So, we spent sometime there and started our journey back to Port Doughlas, where we had our night stay booked.

Port Douglas looked lively in the night with many restaurants and pubs crowded with people. It felt like a great choice to book our night stay there. But having left with little energy after the long day to explore the night life, we cooked our dinner and took rest for the day, dreaming about the big day in ocean tomorrow.

Day 2: Great Barrier Reef

Yeah! The most awaited day finally arrived. We packed up all our swim wear and got ready to get into the Coral sea to reach “The Great Barrier Reef”. We booked a day tour with Silverswift, who will take us to multiple places in the Agincourt reef(outer reef) and let us do the water based activities. The tour operator picked us up from our hotel in a bus and dropped us at the Port Douglas wharf, where our boat started.

There are multiple reefs near Cairns and Agincourt outer reef was the recommended one. We took sea sickness ginger tablets provided in the boat as a precaution, after many warned us about the rough seas. Luckily, the journey went smooth. It took around an hour of speed boat journey in the ocean to reach the first stop of the reef.

I had to choose between scuba and snorkeling. I decided to do snorkeling first and try scuba after I learn swimming completely. We were given clear instructions on dos and don’ts and provided with suits and equipment.

My husband was the first one to test the waters out 😀 As a non-swimmer, it was more of a confidence issue to be in the ocean than the actual skill, as snorkeling doesn’t use any swimming technique.

He got comfortable in some time and then he took us out into the water at the second stop. It was one of the most thrilling moments of life to realize a completely different world inside the water. A detailed experience of my snorkeling is in a separate post which is coming soon.

Most of the people went together as buddies while snorkeling, helping each other out. Waves in the middle of ocean felt very intriguing. The guide explained us that those waves are generated when the ocean touches the corals, located in shallow water.

Scuba divers practiced the technique at the shore for around 10-15mins, after which they went into the water. It felt interesting to watch them use various buttons to go inside the water and come out.

There was an option of hiring an underwater camera to click photos. We didn’t hire that as we felt it will be inconvenient for us to snorkel with that, but I believe it can be easily managed and we planned to take it the next time we visit.

The boat stopped us at total three stops for snorkeling. We clearly understood the complete ecosystem of coral reefs after that and its significant role in managing the diverse marine life. We were exhausted by end of the day as we didn’t have much food on the boat, fearing sea sickness.

We reached our hotel back by around 6pm and relaxed for the day after a heavy meal, recollecting the memories of our beautiful experience under water 🙂

Day 3: Mosman Gorge, Cairns City

We decided to leisurely roam around the city after two packed days. We started around 11am and reached Mosman Gorge, a small beautiful gorge in Daintree rain forest providing a gateway to various treks and aboriginal history. We had to park our car at the entrance and take a bus to go near the Gorge as private vehicles were not allowed beyond a point.

We spent sometime sitting on the rocks of the gorge and then went along the Rex Creek bridge route. All throughout the route, we found many useful boards describing the plants in the forest and their ecosystem.

We found many Basket Ferns in the forest. They grow on top of trees, just below leafy branches. Each basket fern contains a whole ecosystem of insects and earthworms that aerate the compost. Sometimes, pythons/snakes also rest in these baskets and so, its considered dangerous to touch these 😀

The Rex Creek bridge was a gently-swaying suspension bridge across Rex Creek. We walked very carefully on the bridge, after we came to know that it was built recently when the previous one collapsed :P. From the bridge, we could watch the crystal clear waters cascading over rocks below.

We had lunch at our hotel and started our journey to Cairns in the afternoon along the scenic route.

We stopped at Palm Cove beach on the way, beautifully covered with coconut palm trees. It was a beautiful place to stop by on the way to Cairns.

I wanted to drink coconut water there, but unfortunately couldn’t find them anywhere other than on the trees.

We parked our car near the city center of Cairns to explore the night life and markets. There was a free swimming lagoon in front of the beach, where families enjoyed their evening.

We spent sometime there and explored the night Esplanade markets. There were a plenty of souvenir shops and street food stalls. We did some shopping, had our dinner there and headed back to Port Douglas in the night.

Day 4: Cairns to Sydney

Its time to leave Cairns. We had to catch an early morning flight again. I was not really sad this time leaving the place as our holiday was not yet over and we were heading to Tasmania from Cairns with a stop in Sydney. We bid a final goodbye to the beautiful rainforests from the flight 🙂