14 Feb 2010 -- Cairns, Australia

After three weeks in New Zealand we flew to Australia. Our first stop was Cairns, pronounced "Cans". Janet had a timeshare here so we picked up a rental car at the airport and we were on our way. By this time we were getting used to driving on the left except for the windshield wiper thing.



This is the swimming pool right on the beach. Why a pool on the beach - you can't go near the water, more on that later. Downtown Cairns near the beach is fun. Lots of sidewalk cafes and drinking establishments, food from every country and we sampled them all.



The days in Cairns were filled with tours and the first day after we arrived was a snorkeling trip to the "Great Barrier Reef". Our boat out to the reef was fast but it still took about two hours to reach our dive spot. Here's Janet before getting suited up for snorkeling.




We're ready!! Those suits are full coverage to keep the stingers from getting us. Stingers are the jelly fish in these waters and can really do damage, very dangerous. We don't have the hoods on yet but in the next picture, hood are up and even our fingers are covered by the suit.



"Our mandatory tourist photo." Janet is on the right and if it hadn't been for her lighter colored suit I would have had trouble finding her in the water. Everyone else had suits like mine.

The snorkeling on the "Reef" was fantastic. We'd snorkeled in Fiji and New Zealand and thought it was great, this beats them all. Millions of tropical fish everywhere, not one shark.