Snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef

While working in Melbourne on a long-term project, I got to experience two bucket-list items, and I didn’t even know that one of them existed!

GREAT OCEAN ROAD – in my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful drives in the world. It is a two lane highway that hugs the coast of Victoria, in southeastern Australia. It runs about 150 miles from Melbourne to the west. My mom came to visit and we took a weekend to traverse the highway. She was the driver (on the other side of the road) while I navigated, saying “stay to your left! Stay to your left!” the entire time!

She wasn’t happy because she had to drive and couldn’t focus on the scenery. The first part of the trip, the coast was a surfer’s paradise. We passed Bell’s Beach, which was featured at the end of the movie “Point Break” with Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves. But as we drove along, the coastline changed. It got much more rugged with limestone structures that had been created by erosion from the rough surf. This part is called the Shipwreck Coast (it was easy to see why!) and is home to the famous Twelve Apostles rock formations.

When we got to the end of the road, we realized that we couldn’t drive back before dark and we hadn’t made a lodging reservation. There were no vacancies in Port Campbell. Luckily, we continued a few minutes out of town and we saw a sign that said “bed and breakfast” with an arrow pointing up a hill. We could not see the accommodation and felt some trepidation upon turning up the driveway. We needn’t have worried! It was owned by an older gentleman who had recently been widowed. He rented out a couple of rooms in his house as a way to stay in touch with people. We got his last room, and ended up eating breakfast with the other lodgers, who were honeymooners we had seen on our drive the previous day!

GREAT BARRIER REEF – I was lucky to be able to go back to Australia with my mom for a proper vacation, and we spent time in Cairns and Port Douglas in Far North Queensland.

In Port Douglas we stayed at a B&B that was more like a treehouse. It even had a resident cockatoo named Cactus who could talk! We were talking with the proprietor about taking a snorkeling tour of the reef, so she called some friends of hers who owned a smaller tour company (25-person boats vs. 200). They had availability but we were warned that the regular guides were all attending a funeral, so they had to run the tour themselves. Lucky for us, they were marine biologists! We learned so much about the area and the animals that live there.

I didn’t realize that the reef is actually about 1.5 hours from shore. But when you get there, it is only from 6 feet to 20 feet deep. The guides instructed us to enjoy ourselves, but to look up once in awhile to ensure that we weren’t drifting too far away from the boat. We didn’t understand how this could be possible until we started snorkeling. We saw giant purple neon starfish, reef sharks, clown fish, sea turtles – the list was endless. All of the sudden I realized that we hadn’t looked up in awhile and we indeed had drifted far away from the boat! The guides were waving us in because it was time to go. I will never forget my afternoon on the reef!

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