From Reef to Rainforest

After our fantastic dive trip to Heron Island we drove up North to Cairns to start our 4-night liveaboard on the ‘Taka’.  As we had a few days time, we drove through Atherton Tablelands, a plateau close to Cairns, with lush rainforests, waterfalls and very pretty scenery.

Drive through Atherton Tablelands

Paronella Park built by a Spanish Immigrant in the 1950s

Waterfalls at Paronella Park

Milla Milla Falls

Giant Curtain Fig Tree

We boarded the ‘Taka’ Thursday at 4pm and after getting familiar with the boat, our cabins and the dive gear ‘set sail’ towards Ribbon Reef#5. Fortunate for us we were only 9 divers on the boat (usually about 20-15), so the trip was about to get pretty relaxed. And with a Thai chef to take care of us nothing could go wrong anyway :)

Waking up to this view - aaaah!

And it truly was one of the best things we’ve done so far! Wake up at 6:45am, breakfast at 7am, first dive of the day at 8am, and another 4 dives during the rest of the day, in between more eating and relaxing on the sundeck – what a live! While we slept the boat always drove a little bit further North taking us up to Ribbon Reef #10 (in case somebody wants to look it up); our dive sites included Steve’s Bommie, Two & Two Thirds, Christmas Tree Bommie, Andy’s Postcard, Clam Gardens, Lighthouse Bommie etc. One better than the other!!

Beautiful Corals

Nemo :)

White Tipped Reef Shark

Lionfish

Stefan with a Seasnake (and another one creeping up on him in the background)

It was AMAZING!!

Descent - Stefan top left, Marlene fixing her mask just underneath :)

We also visited one of Australia’s most famous dive sites, the so called Cod Hole, known for a group of huge Potato Cods (German: Riesenzackenbarsch) who love to mingle with the divers. Amazing experience!

 

 

Every evening after dinner we also had a night dive where Taka is offering something really special, called Fluoro Diving. This means you won’t use a normal torch but a bluelight torch and an orange filter over your dive mask with which you can see everything that’s fluorescent. This just opens up a whole new world! Lots of corals are fluorescent but also some fish and crabs are and it’s just amazing how the underwater world looks that way.

Scorpion Fish while Fluoro Diving

Dolphins close to our boat

All in all we did 15 dives, and also completed a Nitrox course which means we can now use Enriched Air (contains more oxygen than a normal tank fill) while diving allowing us more bottom time at deeper dives.

After being back on land we made our way to Port Douglas, the Daintree Rainforest National Park and Cape Tribulation. Here the rainforest really meets the reef, it’s like you’d imagine paradise. Unfortunately no swimming due to stingers and crocodile, so maybe not quite paradise :)

Rainforst Cableway to Kuranda

Boulder Gorge

Daintree Rainforest

Paradise!

On our way down to Townsville, we did our last dive in Queensland, the wreck of the SS Yongala, a steamboat which sunk in a cyclone in 1911. It wasn’t found until about 40 years later and ever since has become a top dive spot as it’s completely covered by corals and anemones and home to a vast array of marine life. Being pretty spoilt with calm water and visibility of 30m+ on the liveaboard, my (Marlene) first impression of the wreck was actually a bit disappointing as the visibility was really bad, maybe 7meters. But once you get used to it and concentrate on the wreck itself it’s actually pretty amazing what you can see down there. And only after a few minutes we were rewarded with huge marble rays swimming next to us, eagle rays, sting rays, turtles, lots and lots of fish and also a bullshark! 

We now left Queensland behind and made our way across the Overlander Track to Alice Springs (about 2500km). We finally got the OK from Austria for our double citizenship and have spent the first afternoon in Alice Springs’ library to sort out our Australian application. Fingers crossed everything will go well!