The View From Above – Arlington Reef – Cairns, Australia

Flying into Cairns, Australia, one of the main cities that acts as a jump off point for the Great Barrier Reef, was a magical experience. We flew out of Christchurch, in New Zealand, stopping over in Brisbane, which is a few hours south of Cairns. About an hour before landing, still out over the ocean, we started to see iridescent shapes. They started off small, then there were a few larger ones, then there were a few minutes without seeing any, then there were more! When we first started to see them, we weren’t sure what we were looking at. Neither of us knew what to expect when coming to the Great Barrier Reef, aside from what we thought we’d see under water. But we soon realized that what we were seeing was the actual reef from above, and it was awesome. Kevin did some digging around in Google Maps and our flight path and determined that the reef in this picture is Arlington Reef. It’s a very distinguishable boomerang shape in a cluster of what are mostly random shaped reefs. We’re setting out today to do some snorkeling and scuba diving. This time we’ll be experiencing the reef from underwater, and if it’s anything like experiencing it from above, we can only imagine how magical it’ll be.