Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific - diving/snorkeling on reef anywhere close to Brisbane?

Hi all, and thanks for your comments in the other thread about the Sydney-Melbourne drive!

Another possibility I've been looking into is to go up north for diving/snorkeling with friends on the Great Barrier Reef -- but... the flights are so expensive up to Cairns, and it's not really worth it just for the water. However -- flights to Brisbane are cheap, so I was wondering if diving can be done on the reef anywhere near Brisbane? We could do some driving, so this is an option. I just am not sure how far south the reef goes?

Anyone with experience in this area? Thanks!

i think bris is all mangroves in and around and the reef doesn't go down that far, you'll need to drive at least 3 hours north before you start hitting the reef (can someone please confirm?), well past the central coast...

if you are going to make your way all the way here, i do suggest you try and make it up to cairns and port douglas, it's not worth missing. suggest you consider other options if flights to cairns are too expensive:

1) fly to townsville (TSV) often cheaper and a solid 3 hour drive from TSV to CNS.

2) fly to prosperpine / hamilton island - doubt you'll get this cheaper, 3 hour drive from whitsundays/prosperpine to TSV, then the solid 3 hours on top = 6 hours.

3) fly to rockhampton or mackay (sugar capital of australia), mackay is about 3.5-4 hours south of townsville or rockhampton which is about 6 hours from townsville, so 9 hours all up to get to cairns.

the drive from BNE-TSV is hard yakka - like 14 hours, add in cairns and it's 17 hours non stop. If you want, you could break it in two between BNE-ROK and ROK-TSV/CNS. Some dirt cheap places in ROK to stay, but ROK is the boring beef capital of australia, really nothing to do.

Some great diving around BNE:

Tangalooma Wrecks
http://www.esperancestar.com.au/divesites/wrecks.asp?did=509
http://staff.dstc.edu.au/mcarthur/jarcat/TangaloomaJuly2001/story.html

And others:

http://www.esperancestar.com.au/divesites/reef.asp

Pro Dive does a lot of trips:
http://www.prodivebrisbane.com.au/frame_home.html
Mantis Dive for the more advanced:
http://www.mantisdive.com.au/calendar.htm#BRISBANE

Dive Sites around Moreton Island:
http://www.divefantasea.com.au/main/moreton.htm

Julian Rocks is off Byron Bay, less than 2 hours drive from Brisbane (and have a beer at the Beach Hotel phwoar!):
http://www.planula.com.au/dive/julianstory.html

And sharks off Straddie (North Stradbroke Island):
http://www.stradbrokeislandscuba.com.au/sharkalley.htm

I've also done some diving at Cairns - but there's some great spots here!

Edited to add: The reef goes about as far south as Gladstone - the best reef diving close to Brisbane is Heron Island (http://www.heronisland.com/). Heron is off Gladstone, and you can get cheap fares BNE-GLT (on a Crash-8) via www.qantas.com.au (http://www.qantas.com.au) at around A$115 each way.

[This message has been edited by willyroo (edited 09-24-2003).]