We had some friends from our neighborhood bike group, Stephanie and Anish, visit for a couple of weeks, we spent some time in Melbourne and the Great Barrier Reef and they added a Sydney side-trip. Now that we are “locals”, we have our favorite places that we can go in Melbourne and St. Kilda. We took a bike ride up to Half Moon Bar which is getting nicer as the weather warms up and visited a couple of our favorite places in the CBD a day trip to the Great Ocean Road.
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We also went to visit the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland – we struggled to figure out exactly what to do or where to go. The Great Barrier Reef is about the size of Montana – so you have to pick a central point and Cairns is one of the main destinations (although it is one of those places that “a croc will get you”). I only went for the weekend – a day of snorkeling and visit to the rainforest while Sharon, Steph, and Anish, stated a couple of more days and went to visit some tropical islands. The day of snorkeling was a little more involved that we expected – it was a 1.5 hour boat ride into the Coral Sea, you had to wear “stinger suits” to protect from deadly jellyfish, and we also had scuba people on board which made it more hectic. But once we got to the reef – it was worth it for the travel time. I haven’t snorkled much, so I don’t know if this was great or is typical of a snorkling site in the tropics but it was like being in an aquarium with the coral reef and fish everywhere. But better than Lake Keystone. The stinger suit was good to avoid sunburn but by the time we got to the last dive, many people had taken them off as there were no jellyfish (or crocs). I did see two sharks but couldn’t get the picture – they were about 4 feet and apparently harmless. We rented a GoPro which supposedly had 3 easy to use settings (photo, video, and time lapse) – I thought I was on photo mode but was actually taking videos wildly swinging the camera/selfie stick so a lot of useless footage. I did get some pics that are attached – but pictures don’t it justice. Finished off the day with a nice meal – went to a place that featured “Bush Tucker” – meaning from Australia (like Croc or Kangaroo), so I got a raw Roo filet and a hot stone. Really good.
