Day 6: Cairns - Great Barrier Reef

We woke to blue skies with on a little light cloud - perfect for our flight over the reef.  We got picked up by a DainAir shuttle around 9:20am and we had a quick trip out to the airport.  We got our little lifevests strapped on and were run through a safety briefing.  Then we met our pilot - a young chap called Rohan!

We were in a little 4 seater, and Steve kindly let me ride shotgun, so he had Rohan on his lap.

 It was only 5 minutes until we were cruising over Green Island.  It looked very impressive from the air.

We couldn't believe our luck with the skies!  It was beautiful over Arlington reef.

The sand islands are called Cay's and for the life of me I can't remember all of their names.

As I am hotspotting on my phone as the internet is not working, that is all for the reef.

We got back to the hotel around 11am after the flight.  We cobbled together the swimming gear, including snorkels and vests, and drove down to the Lagoon.  When we arrived we discovered that it is closed Wednesday mornings until 12pm for maintenance.  So we had lunch but the boys were itching to get in.  At 12pm, they bolted into the lagoon and we spent the next 1 hour 30mins playing in the water.  By this time I was bored senseless and the boys were starting to shiver (it was probably around 23C outside).  We got dressed and came out to find it raining - so it was a perfect time to leave.  We went home and dumped our stuff before heading to a seminar thingee.  It is hard to explain it as I won it on a scratchie card!  In the end, we didn't have to sit through 90mins of  marketing to sell us a holiday club, they just gave us 7 nights of accommodation at a resort of our choosing (15 to choose from).  This sounds weird, and it is a bit surreal but the end result is a nearly free holiday - nice!

By now the boys were very tired, so we went back to the hotel and they bludged on the bed watching ABC for kids.  Steve and I sat outside with beers.

After a little discussion, we decided to return to the Golden Boat Chinese restaurant for dinner.  We had the same dishes as a couple of nights ago but added Crispy skinned pepper duck.  Once again it was very good however the dine-in cost was nearly twice the cost of takeaway - ouch!

I had no idea how tired I was until I feel asleep straight after the boys were in bed. Steve turned out the light at 8:30 and we were both gone!  Big day!