Cairns was one of the main reasons I traveled to Australia in the first place. More specifically, I wanted to dive the Great Barrier Reef.
I had seen tropical reefs before, but nothing on the scale of what waited offshore from northeastern Australia. Even from the surface, the water shifted through incredible shades of blue, and once I got underwater the reef was unlike anything I had experienced before.
I enjoyed the diving so much that I went out on five dives over two different days.
I actually spent a full week in Cairns, but looking back at my photographs you’d never know it. I was so interested in the Great Barrier Reef and the surrounding rainforest that I barely thought to photograph the city itself. I regret that now, because Cairns was my base for an entire week and became one of the places I spent the most time during this trip to Australia.
Heading Out to the Great Barrier Reef
Even before getting into the water, the reef looked different from anything I had seen before. The colors of the ocean alone were impressive.
Once underwater, it got much better.
There were huge coral formations, schools of fish moving in every direction, giant clams, sea turtles, rays, and fish far larger than anything I had encountered on my previous dives.
Still a New Diver
This was still very early in my diving life. I had earned my scuba certification only about a year earlier and had used it just once since then, in Hawaii.
So the Great Barrier Reef was one of my first major diving experiences.
That probably made it even harder to top afterward.
One fish looked like it might have weighed around 70 pounds. Another was absolutely enormous—at least several times larger than I was. It came close enough that I could actually see its teeth.
I had no idea exactly what species it was at the time.
I did know it was gigantic.
Colors Beneath the Surface
One thing that becomes obvious very quickly while scuba diving is how fast colors disappear as you descend.
Red and other warmer colors fade first, and the deeper you go the more everything shifts toward blue and green unless you use artificial light.
That meant some of my photographs didn’t capture the reef the way it actually looked to me underwater. The underwater camera equipment I was using back then was also a long way from what is available today.
The bright blue coral above was relatively close to the surface, so more of its color remained visible.
Giant Clams
The giant clams were another thing that stood out.
Some were sitting thirty or forty feet below the surface and looked almost built into the reef itself. Their size and colors made them completely different from the small clams I was used to seeing back home.
Life Everywhere
The scale of the Great Barrier Reef is difficult to appreciate from a single dive site. It stretches for an enormous distance along Australia’s northeastern coast, and I could only experience a tiny part of it during my visit.
Even that tiny part felt overloaded with life.
Huge coral formations covered the bottom while hundreds of fish moved above and between them. I also saw a sea turtle, manta rays, and a small eel during my dives.
Every time I looked somewhere else there seemed to be another animal.
Five Dives Still Weren’t Enough
I ended up doing five dives over two days, which felt like a lot at the time.
It still wasn’t enough.
The Great Barrier Reef was easily the best diving experience I had encountered that early in my travels, and years later it remained extremely difficult to beat.
I’d also love to return with better underwater camera equipment. These photos were taken very early in both my diving and travel photography, and they don’t come close to showing how impressive the reef looked in person.
I was also happy to avoid one particular Australian specialty: dangerous jellyfish.
I had heard plenty about them before arriving, but fortunately they were more of a concern closer to shore than at the offshore reef sites where I was diving.
Into the Rainforest
The Great Barrier Reef might have been the main reason I came to Cairns, but it certainly wasn’t the only reason to be there. The tropical rainforest surrounding the city was almost as much of a contrast with the rest of my trip as the reef itself.
One of the places I explored was Barron Gorge, where rainforest-covered mountains rise around the Barron River not far from Cairns. After spending so much time looking beneath the water, it was a completely different side of tropical northern Australia.
The thick rainforest, steep gorge, and waterfalls were exactly the kind of scenery I had hoped to see in northern Queensland. It also gave me another reason to spend so much of my week outside Cairns itself.
A Week in Cairns
I had rushed through Sydney because I was so determined to get north to Cairns.
After finally reaching the Great Barrier Reef, I understood why.
I was still a new diver, and suddenly I was swimming among giant clams, sea turtles, rays, huge schools of fish, enormous coral formations, and at least one fish large enough that I seriously noticed its teeth.
Between diving the Great Barrier Reef and exploring the rainforest around Cairns, the week went by quickly. Ironically, despite spending an entire week there, I took almost no photographs of Cairns itself. At the time I was much more interested in what was offshore and hidden in the rainforest than photographing the city I was staying in.
I regret that now. Cairns was more than just the place where I slept between excursions, and if I ever return, I’ll make sure I actually photograph the city this time.
Five dives later, though, the Great Barrier Reef was still the reason I remembered Cairns most.
