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Great Barrier Reef
Off Cairns, Australia

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Intrepid run 33 lively, good value, different tours of Australia, including overland adventures along the East Coast. All Australia Trips | East Coast Explorer
 Cape York Discoverer | Fraser Island & Reef Experience

Cairns Pictures, Australia

Two pontoons on the outer reef near Cairns.

Click to see Cairns or Kuranda or choose other Australia photos below.

Trips to the Barrier Reef go on all sorts of craft with all sorts of deals, but will be pricey, take an hour and a half to get to serious reef [about 30kms away] and may well involve a bumpy ride too. In fact travellers prone to seasickness might opt for tours that head for large, anchored pontoons such as those pictures above that are relatively stable compared to rocking and rolling boats - even if you have taken seasick pills.

A Great Barrier Reef dive pontoon and stinger suits, Australia

Space Station GBR.

Barrier Reef trippers - divers and snorkellers - get suited up on a pontoon 30kms from Cairns during the stinger season.

Great Barrier Reef from sea level, near Cairns, Australia

The Great Barrier Reef; that's all you will see above sea level without help from an aircraft.

The outer reef near Cairns is supposedly one of the finer diving and snorkelling areas but truly doesn't match up against the world's best, such as Red Sea sites or even the Ningaloo Reef on Australia's west coast. Fish species are fine and varied but the coral looks tired and lacking in colour or variety while visibility is often poor.

Cairns Pictures, Australia

The tour's pisologist tickles a giant Maori Wrasse during fish feeding time on the GBR. GBR islands.

Cairns is a popular place to get a dive licence, prices are competitive and final dives will be on the reef. In high-jelly season [Nov-March] stinger suits will be part of any good tour package.
Diving is better further north in the Ospreys or south on the Yongala wreck [neither of which are actually the GBR], while Lady Elliot Island, the Barrier Reef's last gasp way down south offers some good dive sites.

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