Could I come all this way and not dive the reef?

Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

I arrived in Cairns at 5:45 and began to seek out a dive deal – someone had told me that you could get $100-$150 off the price of a trip just by waiting til you get to Cairns and grabbing up a last-minute spot. This would have been much easier to pull off if 1. the stores were open at six in the morning, 2. I knew where the stores were, or 3. most of the trips weren't already fully booked. In the end, I went to a hotel and got a 2-day 7-dive trip for AU$280 departing at 8AM; most of the liveaboard options offer a ridiculous number of dives for the time period so you get to really test the limits of the pressure charts.

The company's setup involved a floating hotel that just sat out on the reef 24/7 as well as a ferrying dive boat that takes you 90km out to that boat and throws you in the drink for a few dives along the way. Standard issue equipment was a wetsuit, dive computer, and the usual gear; no compass was included so as to pressure you into paying the $15 extra for a guide. All of the certified divers were scared into buying the guide option – except for me and a cocky English guy.

The trip out was rocky and I made the clever choice of sitting next to a horde of Japanese who were spewing over the sides and on to the instructors' gear. However, I made it out whilst keeping my oatmeal in place and was soon enjoying a dive on the Norman Reef. Though my buddy was nonplussed by the experience (having done the Yongala Wreck the week before – said by many to be the best dive in the world), the area was full of vibrant corals and huge fish of varieties I'd never seen before. There was a huge preoccupation with “finding Nemo," but having once had 3 Nemos in my fishtank, I was looking for the man-eaters. We got considerably lost but managed to make it back to the boat with air to spare – however my computer was flashing loads of disturbing messages like “no fly", “slow down", and “Crikey, You're really buggered now!"

An hour later, after an extensive buffet lunch, we were back in the water for a second similar dive which featured giant clams and a school of meter-long parrotfish; we had along a girl who managed to go through 200 barr in the first five minutes – I guess our tendency to swim in random directions with no coordination with each other or a pre-established plan just didn't offer the same assurance as the overpriced guide.

After transferring from “ReefQuest" to “OceanQuest" we got our bunks and were immediately in the water for our third dive; here we saw a 2-meter reef shark and a spotted ray and came to the realization that our hand signals didn't really jack to the other guy as my “50 barr, time to go up" translated to “let's dive deeper and explore over there."

Following an hour's rest and a substantial roast dinner, we set out for a night dive; the standard issue flashlight had all the luminosity of a wristwatch, but fortunately, someone in our group gave into the extortion and rented the $6 upgrade. The night sea was full of trigger and angel fish, and we came across shrimp, rays and sharks as well. I had no clue where I or the boat was at any given time, but fortunately, an advanced member of our group used some mysterious navigation technique to land us back at exactly the right time. The evening finished with a birthday desert for some random passenger and me unceremoniously passing out before 9.

The next day started with a 7AM wakeup call for bacon and eggs followed by an 8AM dive in the same spot as the last two (despite the thousands of sites in the world's largest park, our captain decided it'd be simpler to stay put). We had a divemaster along on this trip and managed to see 5 sharks, 3 rays, a pufferfish, a cuttlefish, a feeding turtle, an octopus and the kitchen sink; as usual, I was the first to run out of air and I reboarded the boat with a record 5 barr (though I surfaced with 40 (just in case anyone's rushing to report me to PADI)). An hour later we were thrown in the same place and found a buick-sized lobster.

For lunch we had Mexican food (a terrible choice when you have a dive in half an hour) an dour boat scootered a few hundred meters up to the next mooring. We dove on a pair of 20m rock pillars, but had some newbies along and had to go up early; this was probably for the best since my lunch wasn't settling and I was chumming ground beef into the shark-infested waters around me.

Around 3, ReefQuest docked with our boat and transferred the supplies that would be essential for the next group of drivers; among these were 350 rolls of toilet paper and 15 cases of beer. We were loaded back on the ferry and had a non-eventful 90 minute trip to the harbour.

The weather in Cairns was abysmal but there seemed to be remarkably little to see anyway. This city is the big-brother of tour-starters like Airlie and Queenstown and the general consensus was that the only way to enjoy Cairns was to get out of it. Though the vast majority of businesses were unofficial “tourist information centers", there were also a plethora of souvenir shops offering everything from kangaroo skin to emu jerky, and a number of lively hostels offering up cheap rooms and food (supplemented by heavily-commissioned tours). The tropical fruit markets provided plenty of unidentifiable goods including “custard apples", “ramputans" and “lemonade fruits" (quite possibly a variety of lemon).

I stopped into a tour company and talked to a man calling himself Santa; he claimed that except for his and a few select others, all the Cairns establishments were evil. He also confirmed my suspicion that “deposits" were actually commissions (so I paid $40 just to book my scuba trip). He seemed like a cool guy so I booked his Cape Trib trip departing at 7 the next morning.

Cairns nightlife is big business – all the hostels and pubs offer up live entertainment (including nightly toad races) and beyond that, bands play in free outdoor venues, and buskers line the streets. Across from my hotel, the local fire-juggling club was practicing; the members were from all walks of life and even included a 4-year-old girl (who miraculously managed not to incinerate herself with the flaming ball on a chain that she hesitantly swung to and fro).

The following morning, a minibus picked me up for the tour; I am of course, absolutely opposed to the notion of guided tours, but given the high cost of public transport and the lack of a car, I had no other option for tackling the 400km trip up to the cape and back. We started the day with tea at an animal sanctuary where bush babies jumped from one tourist to the next and cassowaries (a.k.a. killer chickens) swallowed tropical fruits whole. We ferried across the Daintree River and went on a walk through the rainforest discovering many new varieties of plants that can kill you in fascinating ways. In another hundred K, we had lunch at the Cape Trib beach before reversing course and heading for a cruise on the river. From the safety of our boat, we saw three crocs, two tree frogs, and a snake.

I was up early the next morning trying to get standby prices on various tours, skydives and raftings. I didn't have much luck with that so I switched gears to try to find things to do around town. I finally found the one legitimate tourist information centre (the one that's run by commission-free volunteers) and was directed to check out the northern beaches and botanical gardens.

I took an hour-long bus ride to the top beach and began the long hike back down. Each beach was covered in signs warning to go in the water but is also well equipped with bottles of vinegar at “stinger stations" for everyone who goes in anyway. There is one small partition for each beach that uses netting tied to floating noodles that supposedly keeps out the jellies, crocs and sharks – some places are just not meant for swimming.

I made it back to the city and ran up to the botanical gardens and the adjacent art museum which was housed in old sewage tanks. The airport was right across the street so I crashed there for the night and had winged back to Brisbane in time for my Monday morning class.

"Killer chicken"