Cairns & The Great Barrier Reef

View of Cairns from the airplane

It's 6:02 PM. here in Cairns, Australia. We just got back from a day trip spent on the Michaelmas Cay, a small reef off of the Great Barrier Reef. OMG is all I have to say.

OK, so let's start with day one in Cairns. We arrived and made it to the hotel room, and decided to head out for some grub and some drinking. We were excited to celebrate St. Patrick's Day Aussie style. As Claudia was bathing, Christine decided to blow dry her hair with my 1875 Watt hairdryer. The luck of the Irish just wasn't with us at that point because my hair dryer blew what we thought was a fuse, but turned out to be the electricity for the entire 5th floor of our hotel! Ooops! The hotel manager was cool about it, and fixed the problem shortly thereafter.

So we headed out for a night on the town. Hanging with the backpackers of Cairns was interesting. We hit up two different bars, and each had many backpackers dressed in green, and some not dressed at all; there was a wet T shirt contest at one of the pubs we went to.

Day two in Cairns started at 7:20 A.M. We had a nice breakfast and then headed on the bus to take us to Michaelmas Cay. Today was one of those days where we experienced a moment of clarity, as we boarded a boat headed to one of the seven Natural Wonders of the World; The Great Barrier Reef. It was simply amazing. We boarded the Ocean Spirit Catamaran which took us two hours out on the water to the gorgeous Michaelmas Cay. We started the tour with a semi submersible ride in the Reef. Take a look at the pics below. Through this submarine-type vessel, we were able to see sea turtles, a reef shark, and many of the colorful corals the reef houses.

We then ate some lunch on the Catamaran, and then got our wet suits and snorkeling gear on for the underwater experience of a lifetime. We hopped on a small beach buggy and rode out to the reef where we snorkeled for hours. We saw sting rays, gorgeous corals, HUGE clams, schools of vividly colored fish, and the water was a pleasant 90 degrees! Oh, and guess what? NO BOX JELLY FISH!!!

We are getting ready to take a walk to the Esplanade here at Cairns, to do some more souvenir shopping, get some grub and of course, to get Christine her ice cream Yay!). We are all kind of still swaying back and forth, I guess being on the boat for so many hours has left us a bad case of sea legs. Guess we'd never make it as mermaids.

Here are some pics of the day's activities. Enjoy!

Tomorrow we are off on a 4 wheel drive adventure to the Daintree Rain forest. Hopefully, we will finally see the wildlife we've been talking about for months leading up to this trip!

Thanks for checking in with us. Talk to you guys tomorrow!

-The NYC Aussie Trio

Boarding the Catamaran

Claudia in her Wet Suit

Rachel in her wet suit

Photos from the Reef...stay tuned for the underwater camera photos once we're back in NY!
Look at the Sea Turtle!!!!!