The Reef
22nd February 2010 The Great Barrier Reef is arguably one of Australia’s most famous tourist attractions with hundreds of boats visiting it every day of the year. The reef stretches from Bundaberg some 2300kms to New Guinea following the outer edge of Australia’s continental plate. The reef runs closer to land as it moves north and is barely 50km from Cairns. Far from being a continuous, unified structure, the nature of the reef varies along its length; the majority is made up by an intricate maze of individual, disconnected patch reefs which sometimes act as anchors for the formation of low sand islands known as cays. ...