Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is well known for being the largest coral reef in the world. In fact, It is 348,000 square kilometers and is larger than the Great Wall of China! It has many colorful coral and different kinds of fish as well as other exotic sea creatures. Since there is about 3000 km of coastline, there are many different points to visit to explore different parts of the reefs. My family and I visited the Great Barrier Reef at Hamilton Island and Port Douglas.
Hamilton Island is a very nice place to stay at because it is part of the Whitsunday Islands, where there are many beautiful beaches. It also has access to some of the best parts of the Great Barrier Reef. The Whitehaven beach is the most famous beach in the Whitsunday Islands. The best way to view the beach is to hike up to Hill Inlet!
From the Whitsunday Islands, you can also take a helicopter tour and see the Great Barrier Reef from up above! The reefs are very visible from the sky and look very different from how they look when you are swimming in them! During the tour, you can also see the famous heart reef.
We stayed at Port Douglas because it is near the rainforest as well as the Great Barrier Reef, so we could get a taste of two different environments. We took a tour of the rainforest and saw some interesting plants and animals!
While we were in Australia there was a risk of the Irukandji Jellyfish and box jellyfish. While the Box Jellyfish is very large, the Irudkandji Jellyfish is tiny and hard to spot, so we wore full-body stinger suits while snorkeling! Thankfully we didn’t run into any jellyfish.
The Great Barrier Reef is unique for having a lot of very big fish, many more than we usually see in other places!
There were also many of these giant clams! They look like they can fit a toddler inside!
We also had some very new experiences. We saw cuttlefish for the first time! In the ocean they glow and look very shiny. We also had a marine biologist with us on one of the expeditions who let us hold a sea cucumber!
The Great Barrier Reef is definitely a place worth visiting for great snorkeling, and Australia also has many other sights to offer.
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