I have been to Australia on 3 different vacations from 2001 to 2015. I dove the GBR in 2001 on the Nimrod III and again in 2004 with Cairns Dive Center. This included the Cod Hole, Lizard Island and Steve's Bommie just to name a few. The Nimrod III (Explorer Ventures) is no longer operating out of Cairns and the boat was sold. My wife and I dove with CDC on our honeymoon in 2004 and while the weather/waves were bumpy with lots of current at COD Hole it was still excellent. I avoided the larger dive operators on both trips and wound up with really high quality dive experiences on both occasions. We also did a couple day dives out of Brisbane Gold Coast. In 2015 on my 3rd Sabbatical in June/July (Australia Winter) we took the kids and flew from Singapore (Home base for trip) to Perth on a red eye. We then rented a car and drove 14hrs 1100Km from Perth to Coral Bay. This was quite a trip with 7 and 8yr old girls but the drive was beautiful. We started in almost Snow/Sleet in Perth to tropical water up north. The Ningaloo Reef is unique among all the diving I have done because it is a (Fringe Reef) literally 30ft off the beach and requires only snorkeling gear. The beach is remote and in 2015 this whole area was not very developed but because it isn't the experience is something hard to pass up for the adventurer. We spent 2 days just snorkeling and hanging out on the beach(fresh catch for eats at most local restaurants), one day two tank dive at only local dive shop and one whole day snorkeling with Whale Sharks out of Exmouth. I wrote up a whole trip report here if you want more info.