Public listings checked 25/10/2026. Dates use each event’s local time. Check organiser details before travelling.
Explore the region
Discover Cairns and the northern beaches through to Palm Cove. Kuranda is a separate day-trip destination; reef and rainforest travel depends on access, transport and conditions.
Listings across Cairns, Cairns City, Edge Hill, Kuranda, Manunda, Palm Cove, Parramatta Park, Redlynch, Smithfield.
Attractions and places to visit
60 places in this selection. Opening hours, access and admission vary; check the place details.
Marlin Coast Diving offers a range of certification courses based on DDI (Disabled Divers International) protocols. The core teaching agency standards we use are SDI (Sport Divers International) and PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors).
Their vision is to be the Centre of Excellence for accessible diving. Marlin Coast Diving's mission is to open the wonder of SCUBA diving to individuals with physical, mental, or emotional disabilities and allow them to participate in underwater activities.
Step into the tranquillity of Annie's at the Beach and browse the extensive range of cool cottons, comfortable linens, silk-wear and beach style clothing, synonymous with the Palm Cove lifestyle.
With an emphasis on timeless wear-ability, you will find a celebration of niche labels in a wide range of colours, styles and sizes. The friendly yet unobtrusive staff at Annie's are always available to ensure you select the perfect outfit.
But its not all about the ladies. Annie's at the Beach also stocks quality menswear, swimwear, children's swimwear and accessories that you don't see everywhere. With such a wide selection, you are sure to leave with a smile on your face as beautiful as the new outfit in your bag.
Tropical Cove is Palm Cove's community-driven shop for local gifts, wellness, and pet lovers, created with the region's own artisans and makers.
Visitors can browse a curated range of locally made goods and quality pet products, book on-site remedial massage or lymphatic drainage, or have a special find personalised with engraving.
It is an easy, relaxed stop to experience the spirit of Palm Cove and take a piece of it home from Tropical North Queensland.
Carrowong Sanctuary is a 90 acre pristine property completely surrounded by World Heritage listed rainforest. This unlogged rainforest gives guests a unique experience to enjoy a pristine area. They have no cages or fences, rainforest life is free to roam.
Endangered, rare and vulnerable species include the southern cassowary, musky rat kangaroo, red legged pademelon, northern platypus, pogonomys, antechinus, hydromys, green, striped and pygmy possums and more. Around 130 bird species exist here together with 15 notable reptiles. Flora is unique, with species like Macintyres Boxwood, Licuala Palms, and Plalcospermum.
Roads and walking tracks have been constructed to limit the removal of old growth forest, and avoid soil erosion, and impeded drainage. Power is generated from the sun and eco-sensitive composting toilets are used.
Their original wildlife tours continue to lead the way in rainforest eco-tourism. Carrowong's Wildlife Mountain Safari concentrates on rare and endangered mammals of the night. A Night in the Rainforest, their nocturnal spotlighting walk, reveals the bio-diversity of these ancient rainforests.
Carrowong Fauna Sanctuary is privately funded, locally owned and dedicated to the rehabilitation and conservation of native rainforest wildlife. All tours are led by local wildlife specialists.
Michaelmas Reef is another of the wonderful dive sites off Cairns. A coral cay is located at the southern end of the reef and is home to thousands of sea birds, but more interesting for divers is the fact the island is a nesting place for turtles. As such turtles are very common at Michaelmas Reef and are encountered on almost every dive!
Around Michaelmas Reef are coral gardens and numerous coral heads to explore in depths from 6 metres to 20 metres. Banana Bommie is a popular dive site here, and a good place to see reef sharks, pelagic fish and even manta rays. Some of the best diving and snorkel is found adjacent to the coral cay. Swimming between the coral heads at this site, divers will encounter stingrays, gropers, reef sharks and resting turtles.
Thetford Reef, nestled close to the Cairns coast and just a short boat trip from the popular Green Island, is a two kilometre long burst of colour - with scattered coral heads, sandy floor areas inviting glittering schools of sea life, and lots of swim-throughs for adventure-seekers!
Giant clams, butterflyfish, rabbitfish, damsels, angelfish and pipefish are always visible among the large gorgonian fans and soft coral. Anemones full of cheeky anemone fish and coral heads covered in multi-coloured Christmas worms make for colourful photos. Thetford Reef is also circled by larger pelagic fish, including mackerel, tuna, trevally, wrasse, spangled emperor, red bass, blue and gold fusiliers and sergeant majors.
Divers wanting to encounter a great variety of reef fish are highly recommended to visit the Fish Bowl. This lovely dive site is located off Cairns and situated on the western side of Hastings Reef.
The terrain at Fish Bowl is a mix of coral gardens and coral heads that form a bowl shape, but divers will also find gutters, ledges and walls in depths to 18 metres!
Many pretty hard corals are found at the site and pushing up between them are a good collection of giant clams. While divers will see sea stars, nudibranchs, featherstars and many other invertebrate species, the fish are the highlight of this dive. Schools of goatfish, snappers, parrotfish and fusiliers swarm around the reef, and also common are gropers, sweetlips, batfish, coral trout, lionfish and blue spotted lagoon rays. Turtles and reef sharks also frequent this wonderful dive site.
Accessible on a day trip from Cairns, Jorgey’s Patch features a variety of terrains for divers to explore, including bommies, ridges, gutters and ledges! In depths between 10 and 25 metres divers will find an abundance of reef fish on this reef, including fusiliers, angelfish, wrasses, anemonefish and rock cods.
If you have the time you should check out every nook and cranny, as you are likely to find nudibranchs, boxfish, lionfish, moray eels, gobies, blennies, flatworms and maybe a wobbegong shark. Whitetip reef sharks and blue spotted lagoon rays are also seen at this pretty dive site.
Divers exploring The Oasis at Milln Reef, off Cairns, have a choice of exploring coral gardens in the shallows or a series of bommies in deeper water. The bommies are quite spectacular, rising from 20 to 30 metres and coloured by beautiful whip corals, soft corals and gorgonians!
Large fish gather on these bommies, with barracuda, trevally, sweetlips, mackerel and batfish common. But the coral gardens are almost as good, with pretty hard corals and abundant reef fish. Commonly seen around the coral gardens are turtles, stingrays, moray eels and even a large Maori wrasse.
Turtles are often encountered on the dive sites off Cairns and a good place to encounter one is Turtle Bommie! This magic dive site is located off Saxon Reef, with the terrain made up of coral gardens and a collection of small and large bommies in depths to 15 metres.
The largest bommie at the site is Turtle Bommie and is a cleaning station where reef fish gather for their daily cleaning service. A squadron of cleaner wrasse are always busy here, picking parasites and other debris off the assembled fish. They are fascinating to watch, especially when they boldly enter the gills and open mouth of their clients.
Turtles also visit the bommie to get cleaned, and can be found resting amongst the soft corals. Turtle Bommie is also a good location to see pelagic fish like barracuda, mackerel and trevally. And if you search between the corals you are likely to find nudibranchs, octopus, flatworms, sea stars and occasionally a broadclub cuttlefish.
Saxon Reef off Cairns is dotted with a number of wonderful dive sites, including the brilliant Twin Peaks. Two huge coral bommies, rising from 18 metres to almost touch the surface, give the site its name and always make for an impressive dive! It will take you the entire dive to swim around these massive bommies, as there are many ledges and crevasses to investigate and an abundance of pretty corals to be admired and photographed.
Exploring these bommies divers will find a wide range of typical Great Barrier Reef fish, such as angelfish, coral trout, butterflyfish, anemonefish, snappers and gobies. Schools of barracuda are often seen at the site, and whitetip reef sharks can be spotted resting on the sand. Groups of diagonal-banded sweetlips mill around the tops of the bommies and divers are often surrounded by schools of fusiliers. Smaller bommies are also found in the shallows, with this a good spot to look for pipefish, blennies and octopus.
Positioned 20 kilometres east of Green Island off the Cairns coast, Flynn Reef is home to several dive sites - with the Coral Gardens being just one of them!
Located on the outer reef this site has consistently good visibility of close to 30 metres. Its location also invites visits from large pelagic fish such as dogtooth tuna, mackerel and barracuda, as well as a range of species of shark, especially whitetip reef sharks. This picturesque site is also home to a great variety of colourful reef fish, including coral cod, butterflyfish, parrotfish, wrasse, rabbitfish and sweetlips.
Flynn Reef offers a combination of diving, from dramatic wall dives to intricate hard coral formations, such as found at the Coral Gardens.
