We had a wonderful day out at Green Island yesterday. We were so lucky – we jagged a day of perfect sunshine and no winds. Apparently, it has been raining up here for over a week!! Drew and I had been to the outer reef last time we were in Cairns, but decided it wasn’t worth doing the 5-hour return boat trip with kids.
Instead, we paid half the price, had only a 45-minute boat ride in each direction and could hang out on the island and do our own thing for the day. The island is beautiful, with nice beaches and a rainforest interior.
The coral was by no means amazing, but we have all had some great snorkelling experiences so that didn’t matter. But we did have the most amazing turtle sighting!! We floated along with it for about 10-15 minutes, watching it feed on the sea grass. It even came up and surfaced right next to us before going back down to continue its way. We could have stayed with it for longer if we’d have wanted to, as it was completely unperturbed by our presence.
We also did a glass bottom boat tour, on which we saw a turtle, huge clams and heaps of colourful fish. This was good for Matty as he’d been too scared to come out snorkelling with us earlier. However, he came out with Cam and I later and got to see some nice coral and fish and a stingray. There was no way he would have jumped off the boat into deep ocean on an outer reef tour. Green Island was a great option for us this time.
Today we drove from Cairns to Wonga Beach, where we will base ourselves for a few days to explore the Daintree and Cape Tribulation areas.
The Travelling Dixons 