Cairns & The Great Barrier Reef

By Jason Cochran


Strange to think that when you're below the equator, to seek sunshine and blue water, you don't head south, but north. As soon as visitors step off the plane in Cairns (which locals pronounce like "Cans"), the warm air envelops them and virtually demands instant relaxation. The natural reaction to this sort of greenhouse environment is to swim or sit. Which explains two of the region's big draws: splashing around the Great Barrier Reef, and vanishing into the luxury resorts of Palm Cove and Port Douglas, where the water’s a little less wild.

Most visitors are unaware of how tropical northern Queensland really is. The vertiginous green mountains and consistently warm waters feel like they're cast from the same mold as the South Pacific's great islands, such as Fiji or Tahiti. Of course, geologically speaking, they're cousins, but to find this verdant patch of land grafted onto a continent better known for dry flatness is somewhat boggling.

This is the part of Australia that's closer to Indonesia than Sydney, where the sunlight can sting like a slap, and where, if you're in the mood, you can pick through miles of uninhabited, primordial jungle without sighting a soul. This is terrain on which massive swaths of World Heritage rainforest amble down to the seashore, pause to allow a scenic coastal road to pass, and then hands the baton to a World Heritage reef that stretches past the horizon.

Now, I'm not much of a diver, and to be honest, I was a little nervous about my first trip to the Great Barrier Reef. I needn't have worried. The reef is so big (215,000 square miles, or 1,250 miles long) and attracts so many tourists (many of them, being tourists, are averse to exertion of any kind) that operators aren't at a loss for figuring out how to get people of every skill level beneath the water.

And it must be noted that many visitors have been known to marvel, with sincere admiration but quite under their breath, about their suntanned dive guides' extraordinary fitness levels. Is it the heat, or are they just hot? That, however, isn't something you'll read about in any reputable brochure.

Base yourself in Cairns or Townsville or any other city that deals in the reef trade, and pretty soon, you'll find the excursion to suit your mania (or phobia). Pay a little more to have a patch to yourself, or pay a little more to paddle around with a bunch of companions. There are daytrips for snorkelers, dive helmet wearers, glass-bottom boaters, SCUBA divers, and even people who just feel like sitting on the boat and peering at the surface. Frankly, the fish don't care how you get there—they just want to check you out.

Human beings, on the other hand, always demand to check out the saltwater crocodiles. "Salties" are rarely found in the wild around Cairns anymore—they live in higher concentrations around the Northern Territory's Kakadu National Park, but they are native to northern Queensland, and tourists do crave their chicken-chomping action. Crocodile farms bring visitors face-to-face with the reptilian eating machines, and boat companies run croc safaris around the Daintree National Park.


Who is Jason Cochran?
Jason Cochran has written on travel and entertainment for publications including Entertainment Weekly, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, Newsweek, theNew York Daily News, the Rough Guides, Travel + Leisure, the Village Voice, the New York Post, Marie Claire, Inside, New York Sidewalk, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Arena (U.K.), Who (Australia), Scanorama, and Seasons (Sweden). He also devised questions for the first American season of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (ABC) and before that, spent nearly two years backpacking solo around the world. As a commentator, he has appeared on CNN, CNN Headline News, CNNfn, Fox TV, and MSNBC.com. He is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and New York University's Graduate Music Theatre Writing Program. He lives in Manhattan.