land based diving east coast australia

[ocdiver1]

Heidihart...the Whitsunday's are actually reached from Airlie Beach, the Yongala from Ayr/Alva Beach and Julian Rocks is at Byron Bay. The Whitsunday's are beautiful area, but i found the diving pretty mediocre. I think going to Cairns is worth it, lots to do and see in addition to the diving. I've never personally dove around Brisbane but don't recall meeting anyone who'd dove there and spoke incredibly highly about it. A couple of NSW sites worth looking at are Port Nelson and SW Rocks near Coffs Harbor, although I've yet to dive either. Diving around Sydney is awesome...worth doing even if only to see the weedy sea dragon. I've dove with Abyss and had a good experience. Depending on how much time you had in Oz you could fly in Sydney, give yourself a couple of days to dive there in addition to seeing the sights, fly to Bryon, then work your way north from there to the Yongala and then Cairns, depending on what you wanted to do. Australia has so much to offer topside...I'd give yourself plenty of time to see the sights along the way, depending on your interests.

 

[ocdiver1]

sorry, just reread your original post that you're driving and have a month driving from Cairns to Sydney. That's lots of time! You'll have an awesome trip..I've made that drive before

 

[bracko]

Whitsundays is more of an area to hire a yacht and sail around for a few days, it's not a diving Mecca.

it's quite common for people to pick up a camper van and drive from Brisbane to Cairns. the trip is 1800km (mostly, I am told, on less than outstanding roads) and people usually take a few weeks so they can stop off at multiple places for days rather than hours.

 

[sydney-diver]

Check out this site for a very comprehensive list of Sydney and NSW dive sites Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving Web Site. For boat dives http://www.frogdive.com.au operate a rigid hull inflatable off the beach which gets you to and from the sites quicker than some of the bigger boats which operated from the harbor and have to travel out of the heads to get to many sites which I prefer being a bit susceptible to sea sickness myself.