Epic Round The World Trip Adventures! Stunning Photos & Articles - A fascinating gap year travel journal covering every stop of their journey.

Great Barrier Reef - East Australia
Gap Year Travel Journal

(19th April) Airlie Beach - Great Barrier Reef
Another complete contrast today – we went out on a big boat out to the Great Barrier Reef out the back of the Whitsundays, took a good 2 hours to get there. The trip was lovely and calm while within the protection of the islands themselves but once we hit the open sea it was rougher than they had promised. We were thrown around all over the place and people were being ill everywhere as the boat pitched and rolled quite dramatically. Fortunately we had taken travel sickness tablets and survived! We arrived at a big platform anchored on Hardy Reef in the middle of open sea (50 miles out from Shute Harbour!). It was more sheltered here because of the reef but it was still quite windy and wavy. We went into snorkel here and boy was this a huge step for Jo! She was fine over the coral reef itself where it was shallower but found it really disturbing to swim over the edge where it plunges off down into the depths. Fortunately they have ropes around the edges where you can pull yourself along and it gave us a bit of confidence, especially with such a strong current to swim against. It was well worth the effort. Again there were huge shoals of fish, the same as yesterday but they were bigger and there were more of them this time! And this was the first time that Jo saw a huge Maori Wrasse – called Wally. Very scary! They are not aggressive but it’s the sheer size of them! We saw a starfish, giant clams, nemos (can just make the little chaps out in one of the photos) and another Maori Wrasse too. After an hour and a half Jo came in, which Mike was relieved about cause he had just spotted a shark disappearing on to the distance! Mike went into the deeper stuff that Jo was too scared of. Here he saw huge shoals of yellow tailed fish, big silver Trevallys and more Maori Wrasse. The platform concept is very civilized, when you have had enough of splashing about you can then get a bite to eat at their buffet area or relax on the huge upper deck on a sun lounger enjoying the view. Another great day.