diving in australia

[MarkH]

Or another option (ok, I am biased) would be New Zealand or one of the pacific islands..... 'cause then you don't have to put up with the Australians!

Nice place if it wasn't for the people, eh? Seriously though, I'm a sucker for cold or at least temperate water. Never been to South Australia or New Zealand, but I liked Rottnest (Perth area) better than the GBR day trip out of Cairns. If you could dive it from shore it would be ok though. Sydney had lots of convenient shore diving.

 

[drbill]

Heck, I enjoyed the Ozzies... they were a brash, hard-living crowd but I thought they had a real zest for life and I liked that. Found the Kiwis tried to out-Brit the Brits (oh oh, now I've done it- offended the people of two other friendly countries). A bit reserved for my tastes, but very nice folks and the country is beautiful.

 

[slipslop]

Cairns is located on the north east shore of Queensland in Australia. The Great Barrier reef is a few miles off shore from Cairns. The Great Barrier reef reaches from the bottom of Australia to the top on the East side of Australia. Some popular towns on the east side are Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, Townsville, Cairns, Port Douglas. This list is from south to north.

http://www.auinfo.com/Queensland_map.htm

the reef is a bit more than a few miles offsshore! it takes at least 2 hours to get there in a high speed catamaran. the closest land to the gbr is in the Cairns/port Douglas area. There are a few islands close to cairns with fringing coral reefs. the reef starts some few hundred miles north of brisbane and continues up the queensland coast right up to new guinea.

 

[Peter Guy]

My wife and I are planning to go to Byron Bay (a little south of Brisbane and the easternmost point of Australia, or so I'm told) in early November. It looks quite interesting and the people we've written to appear to be quite helpful.

Any of you been there and do you have any suggestions? Also, we are both concerned about what to dive in -- dry suits here (Seattle) and we have 3 mm for Maui. Just go ahead and rent 5 mm suits there or bring the 3mm with 2.5 mm shorties and hoods?

 

[Zeeman]

byron bay - depending ont he time of the year, the water can be 26 degrees to about 17 (degrees C that is) a quick google will pretty much fill you in.

Re Port Douglas - Dived there twice. the reef is very pretty, clear water, lots to look at, but the boat ride is a killer. 2 hours is about right. for Port douglas, I'd suggest going with asmaller outfit, the big boats tend to be just a bit too...crowded. Haba, Poseiden and Aristocrat are some of the better dive operations out of Por tdouglas. (there are more).

As far as dive spots in aus - I hear Ningaloo is a very good choice - the a bit of a pain to get to.

Damn, I just realised, this country has 22,812 miles of coastline. So much diving to do, so little time....
Z...

 

[DiverDebbie]

Pam... my advice would be to do a liveaboard on the GBR. The diving on the outer reef is much better than day trips from Cairns. I went out of Airlie beach. It was amazing to be out there with no one else in site for 3 days, but it was a long over night haul to get out there, so I suggest going out of Cairns or Port Douglas. If you check other threads there are some great recommendations on who to go with.

Peter Guy... I thought Byron was a fabulous (albeit very touristy) little town (but then perhaps I'm biased because of the surfer I met hehe... no really... lots to do... and I won't bash Aussies cause I think they're the greatest There are a couple of shops that go out around Julian rocks (quite the experience crashing out over the surf!) If you normally dive dry you'll probably be fine with what you have. And hey... I'm off to Maui in Nov... where was your fav. spot there?

 

[Mark Goodchild]

We were out in Oz in June and July. Did some diving on the west coast. If you're in Australia in the winter don't discount this region. Ningaloo reef has good corals which is convienently located near to the coast. Also in the winter there are whale sharks, humpback whales and manta rays.

Also did a Coral Sea liveaboard. This diving was amazing, the Coral Sea and the outer areas of the barrier reef are great and worth the visit.

If I had to choose....tricky one. The pelagics on the West Coast are incredible but the clarity of the water and diverse reefs of the Coral Sea take some beating....go for both!

See here....

Coral Sea:
http://www.zerovisibility.co.uk/Reports/CoralSeaSpiritofFreedomJune05.htm

Exmouth, Western Australia:
http://www.zerovisibility.co.uk/Reports/ExmouthTripReportJune05.htm

Coral Bay, Western Australia:
http://www.zerovisibility.co.uk/Reports/CoralBayJune05.htm

Hope this has not confused you some more!

 

[shep]

Australia is one big country that offers just about every kind of diving you'd want to experience. What kind of diving do you want to do?

We're Americans from Port Angeles, Washington living in Australia for the last 18 months. We live 2 hours east of Canberra on the coast and it is paradise.

Here we have temperate water diving. North to Byron Bay there's fringing coral and semi-tropical diving. To the south of us in Melbourne is wreck diving, kelp beds and the the west near Adelaide are limestone caves for the cave divers. Drop a little south and there cage diving with Great Whites...

There's the GBR, of course, and diving in Western Australia is also it's own special treat.

So to really answer the question- you have to say what it is you want to do!

Australia has it all...somewhere.


shep

 

[almitywife]

Or another option (ok, I am biased) would be New Zealand or one of the pacific islands..... 'cause then you don't have to put up with the Australians!

now Andy play nice... after all - we might even let you win the Rugby tonight!

 

[teckhead]

Don,t over look Brisbane, or Sunsine coastline the diving is awsome, sunsine coast just had there first wreck ,HMAS BRISBANE , it,s going to put Sunsine on the map for wreck diving.