Megamoon

Our road trip continued north via Hervey Bay and Yeppoon (both attractive seaside towns) to Airlie Beach – gateway to the Whitsundays!

Airlie Beach had a backpacker/party vibe which wasn’t our cup of tea, but the man-made lagoon was nice to lounge around during the day.

From this point north the seas were filled with poisonous (and deadly) jellyfish, meaning we could only go in with full body stinger suits. Even further north there were also river and sea Crocodiles (which we thankfully didn’t spot)

The Whitsundays were so beautiful! Turquoise waters, white sands, stunning corrals and sea life. We went on a 2 day sailing trip around the islands on a small (10 person) boat.

We stopped at a number of reefs off Hook and Hayman Island where we went snorkelling. It was like swimming in a giant aquarium, surrounded by multicoloured fish, bright corals, turtles and at one point a huge manta ray. In the mornings we would sit on the boat to watch turtles surface, popping up their heads, taking a gasp of air.

We spent a few hours on Whitehaven beach, which was the most impressive beach we’ve ever seen. Huge amounts of white, squeaky, silica sand and shallow turquoise sea full of baby lemon sharks. The shallow waters create small sand islands when the tide goes out. The view of the swirling colours from above was incredible.

We were sad to leave the Whitsundays, but excited to carry on north up to Cairns (with overnight stop in industrial Townsville), where we’d booked a two day diving trip to the outer barrier reef. We chose a honeymooners ‘Reef Experience’ trip, which was very special as we were given our own personal guide for the full trip who guided us on all of our dives, served us a private sunset dinner on the top deck and even served us cocktails and our desert in a jacuzzi under the stars after our night dive.

As for the diving, it was a 90 speedboat ride out to a larger boat moored out on the Reef-this was our home for the next 2 days/1 night. The larger boat moved to 3 different reefs during our stay: Hastings (shallow with impressive corals, sea cucumbers and starfish), Saxon (a long coral wall with lots of sharks and mix of small and bigger fish) and Norman (lots of caves and crevices to swim through)

We did six 40 minute dives and a snorkel session within 24 hours. One of our dives was a night dive in pitch darkness, where we used hand torches to see the sleeping fish as well as the larger hunting fish – quite an adrenaline rush!

We sailed back to Cairns with a handful of videos we took whilst diving and some amazing memories.

After a good nights sleep we moved up the coast and spent our last few days relaxing in Port Douglas, a pretty seaside town which we both really loved.

On our last day we drove through the Daintree National Park and up to Cape Tribulation where 2 world heritage sites meet – Daintree and the Great Barrier Reef. Also where James Cook ran aground in 1770 and here began all of his troubles.

There drive here was stunning with beautiful turquoise waters, endless beaches backed by ancient rainforest.

We could have easily spent longer here on the east cost of Australia, but it was time to move on….next step New Zealand! ??