Honeymoon Stop 6--Port Douglas, Great Barrier Reef

Ready to scuba!

After snow and rain in New Zealand and lots of rain in Sydney, we were looking forward to returning to a tropical climate at the Great Barrier Reef. Warm weather wasn't our only motive; we were hoping to become certified as Open Water Divers, the first level for PADI certification. We completed the e-learning portion of our course while we were in Sydney, so our training course was just three days. Three very long days.

From Sydney, we took a three-hour flight to Cairns and then a one-hour shuttle to the Sheraton Port Douglas, our home for the six days and nights we were at the Great Barrier Reef.

We spent the first day of training in the outdoor pool at the Sheraton in water with a temperature of 23 degrees Celsius or about 73 degrees Fahrenheit. This doesn't sound cold and under ordinary circumstances--swimming some laps or spending an hour frolicking in the water--it's not. But when you spend more than six hours in the water performing scuba skills, like getting accustomed to using a regulator, taking your mask on and off, taking your scuba equipment on and off, practicing buoyancy, etc., 73 degrees starts to feel cold; our core temperatures were so low, everyone in the pool was shivering uncontrollably.

Getting into scuba gear was difficult at first

Z soaking in some sun

Our scuba class consisted of five students including us. Our German instructor made sure we had our skills down cold. By the end of the first day, we were freezing and exhausted and I was second-guessing my decision to take a scuba course. Z didn't enjoy our first day either, but because he had taken a discovery scuba dive years ago, he knew what we were working toward. An unsolicited tip: If you're contemplating scuba certification, take a discovery or introductory dive. This way you know if you like it and you'll know what to look forward to once you complete your scuba certification.

The next two days of the course in the ocean got progressively better. Not only were we (a little) warmer in the ocean, but we also got to see some coral, fishes and other ocean wildlife. By the end of the third day, we did a fun dive in the ocean, reached 17 meters or 56ish feet and began to understand why scuba divers love diving.

E jumping off the boat

Practicing buoyancy in the ocean

Some of the coral we saw on our dives

"Nemos" at the Great Barrier Reef

Despite our exhaustion every day after our scuba course, most evenings we took the town shuttle into Port Douglas to eat dinner because the two restaurants at the hotel were overpriced and the food was just o.k. The food was still overpriced in town, but at least we ate some good Thai and Italian food and some tasty fresh seafood. A couple of nights we indulged on local gelato with flavors like panna cotta and toasted coconut.

After we finished our scuba course and were successfully Open Water certified, we had two days to kill in Port Douglas. The first day after our course completion, another couple in our course, Ingrid and Ashley, invited us to go boating and fishing with them on a river in Port Douglas. Our fishing expedition didn't yield any seafood we could eat, but we caught and saw some interesting wildlife, including a small (about 2 meters or 6 feet) crocodile on the bank of the river.

Croc waiting for the next animal that makes a misstep

Reeling in a mud crab

Catching mud crabs the "proper" way

On our last day in Port Douglas, we rented bikes--"push bikes" as they are called in Australia--from our hotel and took a ride to a nearby nature park where we spent a few hours feeding kangaroos and wallabies and trying to stay clear of domineering ducks and swans. Because of the liability of a bunch of wild animals running around, a park like this would never exist in the U.S. We enjoyed our time at the park even more knowing this was a rare opportunity to play with the animals.

Trying to get over my fear of birds...

Salt water croc and his girlfriend

Feeding a super-sweet baby kangaroo who came to play

Z and the wallaby

The wallabies liked to hold hands as they ate

Port Douglas is tropical and lush and the beach is beautiful, but after a few days the town begins to feel like the small town it is and our Visa card was exhausted from the over-priced everything. We made a brief stop in Sydney before we left the developed, English-speaking world and boarded a flight to Vietnam...