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Photo by Toby Hudson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Great Barrier Reef in October
sweet spot · one of the best months to go · the driest month of the year, the sunniest month of the year
The year in Great Barrier Reef
Tap a month for its page
- JanJGreat Barrier Reef in January: avoid
- FebFGreat Barrier Reef in February: avoid
- MarMGreat Barrier Reef in March: avoid
- AprAGreat Barrier Reef in April: good
- MayMGreat Barrier Reef in May: good
- JunJGreat Barrier Reef in June: sweet spot
- JulJGreat Barrier Reef in July: good
- AugAGreat Barrier Reef in August: sweet spot
- SepSGreat Barrier Reef in September: sweet spot
- OctOGreat Barrier Reef in October: sweet spot
- NovNGreat Barrier Reef in November: good
- DecDGreat Barrier Reef in December: ok
- Sweet spot
- Good
- OK
- Avoid
- Busy
Plan this trip
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Flights from
Flights
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Where to stay
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Luxury
Things to do
Car hire
Travel insurance
Check whether your bank card or home insurance already covers this trip.
If the trip needs a visa, the travel agent or visa centre usually sells the cover it asks for.
Mobile data (eSIM)
Your own plan's EU roaming may already cover this.
Renting a pocket Wi-Fi is the other common way to stay connected.
These are sites people in book with. Each opens in a new tab, on the site's own pages.
The numbers
| Daily high | 29°C |
|---|---|
| Nightly low | 21°C |
| Feels like, afternoon | 32°C |
| Rainy days, 1 mm or more | 2 · 54 mm |
| Humidity | 76% |
| Sunshine | 11.4 h/day |
| Daylight | 12.5 h/day |
| Beach and sea | 29 of 31 days dry and 23–35 °C; sea 27 °C, warm good |
| Crowds | 100 / 100, higher is quieter |
Ten-year averages for this calendar month. A rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts it. The model these figures come from drizzles more than a rain gauge, the more so the warmer the month, so its days count from 2 mm, rising to 5 mm in the hottest.
Weather read at Cairns, 6 km from the airport (CNS): ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.
How busy it gets
Great Barrier Reef in pictures
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Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Ank Kumar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What to pack
- Summer clothes by day, highs around 29°C.
- Sun protection: about 11 hours of sunshine a day.
- Humidity averages 76%; breathable fabrics dry faster.
Each line is a threshold over the ten-year figures above, not advice from anywhere else.
Before you go
Type I plugs at 230 V. Drives on the left. The currency is the Australian dollar. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Global Affairs Canada: Exercise normal security precautions. US State Department: Level 1: Exercise Normal Precautions. Everything for Australia: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.
On arrival in Great Barrier Reef: the apps, paying, getting around, tipping and the emergency numbers.
October elsewhere
In October from
The other months at Great Barrier Reef
- January avoid
- February avoid
- March avoid
- April good
- May good
- June sweet spot
- July good
- August sweet spot
- September sweet spot
- October
- November good
- December ok
← September · All twelve months at Great Barrier Reef · November →
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