Tour Australia

After our second night at Airlie Beach we headed north for Mission Beach. It took us 1 and a half days to drive there and we discovered that the North Queensland coast is very busy with campers and caravaners. We stayed at the Mission Beach caravan park and had some very friendly neighbours in caravans.

On our first full day we headed out to the Great Barrier Reef with Mission Beach Reef Express Tours. We would highly recommend this tour and had a great day with them. We met them at the Clump Point boat ramp and boarded their 12 seat boat. From there it took 45 minutes to get out to the first reef which we believe was the Ellison Reef. This reef was teaming with fish and had plenty of coral to see. The water was warm and we were made comfortable with the wetsuits they provided. One of our tour guides also jumped into the water and showed us a few of the known spots to them including a giant clam and a few Clown Fish. We stayed in the water for a little over an hour then boarded the boat for a second location at this reef.

It was quite similar to the first location except as we got there the tour guides told us that this is the home of a shark. It wasn’t long before we found the shark, just a small 2m White Tipped Shark. It was scared of us so we were not able to swim close to it but it was a great experience to swim nearby and see it. After a 45minute snorkel at this location we boarded the boat again and headed to another reef.

This reef was very different. It had big Plate Coral everywhere and the water was crystal clear, it was almost a bit surreal. Again there were plenty of fish to see and we had a nice time. We stayed in the water for about 45minutes and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We boarded the boat and headed back to the boat ramp. We can’t recommend Reef Express Tours enough, we had such a good day and enjoyed the fast trip out to the reef, the smaller group and the friendly guides.