Where to dive? Where to stay?

[Robinhood]

Okay, need everyone's help with this one. I'm doing Ironman Austrlia next Apr which is in Port Macquarie. Following the race, I was looking to travel to Cairns and get some diving in for roughly a week. A couple of issues with this is: I'm traveling with my family to include wife, 9 yr old, 2 yr old, and 6 month old. I'm looking for a hotel that has kids clubs and somewhat accessible to the diving scene. I was looking at the Palm Cove Resort (I think that was the name). I was also looking at the Paradise Resort on the Gold Coast, but I'm not sure what the diving is like there.

Does anybody know where I can accomplish this? I'm also not completely convinced that I need to go to the GBR region to accomplish this. Any advice would be much appreciated. I'm full cave and an OWSI, but am looking forward to any kind of diving in Australia...one of my life's long dreams!

Thanks!

 

[almitywife]

:happywave

if the GBR isnt THE thing you want to do plus you have your family with you, i suggest Byron Bay (close to the Queensland & new south wales border) instead???

reason being is the family can be settled and doing stuff while you head off for 1 or 2 dives in the morning and still have time to do stuff with them afterwards.

if youre doing day trips via cairns they take all day and either the family come with you and be bored after a while or you leave them alone and head off all day without them.

http://www.sundive.com.au/

kids club; http://www.kidzklub.com.au/

hopefully Carl will be here soon to help you out.

cheers

 

[Robinhood]

Thanks for the response. I also noticed your Iraq support messages on the bottom of your page. I'm in the US Marines and am heading to Iraq right after my trip to Australia, so I will see some of your boys!

 

[almitywife]

well be careful and come home safe!!!! there are a number of SB'ers already in Iraq. one is LetterBoy and he was telling me he was at the aussie camp the other day.... they have the best pool apparently

 

[Doubles]

Hey RobinHood

You might want to wander over to Fodors travel web site www.fodors.com

Click on Talk and then go the the South Pacific Australia forum. It's much like SB. You can search threads etc. Once you register you will be able to post questions. You will get responses from local's like our almitywife as well as from some of yanks who have been there.

2 years ago my wife and I took our adult daughter and my mom down under. We stayed at the SunSeeker apartments in Port Douglas. Very nice place - short walk to the beach and some great cafe's http://www.sunseeker-port-douglas.com.au/

In Cairns there are quite a few hotels and B&B's. We have a friend who runs a B&B just outside of town. We have never stayed there, but Pat is very nice and you will see her posts on Fodors if you go there. http://www.lilybank.com.au/

We always stay at the Hilton in Cairns which is very nice

Plenty to do in Cairns and Port Douglas. For diving we have used Tusa for day trips (Cairns) and Calypso (Port Douglas)

Lots of shopping and cafe's - as for shopping the ladies down under call it "retail therapy" so hang on to your wallet.

For a weeks worth of diving we go out on Spirit of Freedom out of Cairns. They break the trip up into a 3 day Cod Hole/ribbon reef and a 4 day Coral Sea trip. http://www.spiritoffreedom.com.au/

While there check out David Armbrusts Australian Natural History Safari http://www.anhs.com.au/. David takes 4 people max in his Land Cruiser. There is some hiking involved so the 2 youngest might not be able to go. But he gives a great tour of the Daintree Rainforest.

We go down under every year for 5 weeks or so. We have spent a lot of time in Cairns and Port Douglas. Feel free to send a PM if you want specific information about the area from a yanks perspective

Best of luck on your tour in Iraq

Cheers

Steve

 

[TSandM]

We LOVED Byron Bay. It's a kind of self-consciously cute town, but it has good shopping and some EXCELLENT restaurants. The bay itself is beautiful, and there are hikes and other activities for non-divers.

The diving still ranks #1 in my diving experience, because of the sheer density of sea life. We saw nurse sharks and turtles and big rays and small stingrays . . . and HUGE schools of small and large fish. Beautiful nudibranchs, tons of corals and sponges and lots of color. I'd go back there in a minute.

We stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast, which specifically caters to divers, so they had drying areas for gear, and a library full of reference books. It was out on the edge of town, very quiet and very pretty. The proprietors both dive, and they were very patient with all our questions about what we saw.

HERE's a report on our trip (and there are more photographs in the main part of our website).