Great-Barrier-Reef

4th March 2010 Steve Irwin. Love him or hate him, he is undisputably one of Australia’s icons with his cries of ‘Crikey’ and ‘you little beauty’ when talking about a highly dangerous snake or crocodile, which is probably about to take his arm off. Even on leaving the UK, a trip to Australia Zoo was high on our list. Australia Zoo became famous in the 1990 when the Crocodile Hunter and his wife Terri took over management of the zoo. Formally known as the Beerwah Reptile Park and owned by Steve’s parents, the park grew from four acres to seventy acres with over 1000 animals. Steve Irwin died on 4 September 2006 after being fatally pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. This year the zoo is celebrating it’s fortieth anniversay and continues to build Steve’s dream. There is very much a focus on conservation and education in the hope of ensuring all animals, but especially crocodiles and Australia’s native creatures such as Koalas survive for generations to come. ...

20th & 21st February 2010 With yesterday’s very early flight, most of the day was spent just relaxing, catching up on emails and blogs and sleep. We didn’t venture too far from the hostel due to the varying quantities of rain falling from the sky during the day, ranging from light to torrential. Cairns is very much a base for exploring the Great Barrier Reef and areas of far north Queensland such as Cape Tribulation and Port Douglas, and the inland rainforests of the Atherton Tablelands. Tourism is its main industry and it is very much a city about doing, rather than seeing with few monuments, natural or otherwise. ...

22nd February 2010 The Great Barrier Reef is arguably one of Australia’s most famous tourist attractions with hundreds of boats visiting it every day of the year. The reef stretches from Bundaberg some 2300kms to New Guinea following the outer edge of Australia’s continental plate. The reef runs closer to land as it moves north and is barely 50km from Cairns. Far from being a continuous, unified structure, the nature of the reef varies along its length; the majority is made up by an intricate maze of individual, disconnected patch reefs which sometimes act as anchors for the formation of low sand islands known as cays. ...