Today was a day I’d looked forward to for quite a while – I’d organised a bit of a surprise for Debbie’s birthday (a bit over a week ago) here in Cairns, and the day had finally arrived. We were picked up from near our accomodation a bit before 8:30am, and we made our way to Cairns Airport for a scenic flight over the Great Barrier Reef! We were heading on the Reef Hopper flight with GSL Aviation. Given we head out for a full day on the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow for a cruise and snorkelling, I thought it would be perfect to look at it all from the air first.
After a short safety briefing, we all headed out from the little terminal building of the flight company, GSL and onto the tarmac. It was a small, but perfect plane for a scenic flight – just two seats per row, meaning that everyone got a window seat! We sorted out who was sitting where, and all got clipped in ready for the flight.
It’s always fun flying in smaller private aircraft like this – on your headsets, you get to hear the radio transmissions between the pilot and the tower as they get permission to taxi and then to take off. The taxi and then take off is so quick though – we were straight out onto the runway and in the air within what must’ve been less than 60 seconds once we started moving! Once we were in the air, we headed straight out across the ocean towards the incredible collection of reefs and islands out off the coast of Cairns. The first island we got to see was Green Island. Troy, our pilot, always flew around each island or reef to make sure that there was a clear view out of both the left and right hand side of the plane, which made it wonderful for everyone’s views.
From there we continued out past a bunch of other reefs. I honestly can’t remember each of them and the order we visited them, but they included places like Milln Reef, Arlington Reef and Apollo Reef. The views were just spectacular, and as we got to each reef we got a good view out of each side of the plane. Troy was great at introducing each reef we flew over, and pointed out a few interesting things along the way. Looking at each of these places, and seeing a few boats with people snorkelling out of them, made me incredibly excited about us being able to do that tomorrow!
Before we knew it, we were back on the ground and taxiing back to the GSL terminal. My stomach was a little bit thankful – although it was incredible, all the big turns to see the reefs on both sides started to make me feel a tiny bit seedy towards the end of the flight. After we were back on the ground, Troy offered the kids a seat in his spot to see what it felt like. The kids loved it!
This afternoon we headed down to Cairns Lagoon (a man-made saltwater pool, surrounded by sand) for the kids to have a bit of a swim and to just relax a little – the next couple of days will be really full from pretty much 8am to dinner time, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. The city was packed though – it was the Asia-Pacific Ironman event today! And the finish line was right beside the lagoon where we were swimming. It was actually a really fun vibe that the city had going this afternoon.
Tomorrow, up early and out to the Cairns Marina ready for our Great Barrier Reef cruise!
Just been catching up. Great stories, great photos, what an adventure. Tyre blowouts are the worst. I ended up in Hughenden when I did the trip to Darwin and back in the WRX. We were planning to head to Longreach and then there was flooding and all the roads were shut – we pulled into Hughenden late in a massive downpour and stayed the night – explored a few possible roads south and then had to give it up and head to the coast instead.
Yeah, really thankful the flooding that happened recently has subsided and it isn’t impacting us at all! Can’t wait to get to Longreach and Winton etc next week!