This July I went to Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, with my family where we met up with my aunt, who lives there. We did some pretty cool things like watching turtles lay their eggs - awesome; crocodiles jumping - snappy; camping in the outback in an Aussie bivvy called a swag bag; seeing an awesome array of wildlife - parrots, wallabies, monitors; and experiencing Aboriginal culture. However, this isn't the main topic of my post. That stuff was brilliant but there is something really special in the north of Australia - the Great Barrier Reef of course. You could see it as a once in a lifetime opportunity (unless you decide to visit again!).

I had just passed my PADI Open Water dive course, meaning that I can dive in any sea in the world all the way down to 18 metres.

The Great Barrier Reef goes almost right the way round the north eastern coast of Australia and is made up of separate reefs that are packed close together rather than in one continuous stretch. The best dive location is Cairns but you don't always have to dive to see the sea life as you can also snorkel. My sister and mum went snorkelling whereas Dad & I were dive buddies. We went out to the reef on a catamaran and were lucky to be upgraded to a better boat and trip.

We visited two dive sites - each dive was 40 minutes. Once in the water, I completely forgot about life above and took in all the sea and plant life. We saw fish in abundance especially parrotfish, clownfish and angelfish; a shark; two green sea turtles; Christmas tree worms (worms that retract back into their holes when we waved at them); giant clams; sea cucumbers (they squirt out smelly white liquid when attacked); sting rays; a conch and so much more! The plant life was amazing too, I had never seen so many corals ever before! It was fantastic and undoubtedly one of the best things I have ever done.

If anyone is interested in diving I would highly recommend you do the PADI course because the things you can do and see are unbelievable. It doesn't even take that long to complete - mine took 6 weeks.

Unfortunately, I don't have many underwater pictures as I don't have a dive camera but here are a couple. The rest are of the rest of our fantastic trip.