Cairns Aquarium, Queensland: See the Great Barrier Reef without leaving land

Despite 2 million people visiting the Great Barrier Reef, only a small portion, surprisingly, get among it – get wet, that is. Whether it's fear of irukandji or sharks (or both), the inability to swim, or just feeling out of their depth, many experience the reef at arm's length.

It was this realisation that was the impetus behind the opening of the ambitious new $54 million Cairns Aquarium – the first aquarium built in Australia for 18 years, and the only one of its kind in the world to concentrate solely on showcasing the bio-diversity of Far North Queensland's rainforest and marine life.

Entrepreneurs Daniel Leipnik and Andrew Preston, the duo behind the phenomenal aquarium, were on a trip to Green Island six years ago when they noticed how few tourists actually got in the water. "We were amazed by the colours and variety of fish and coral but couldn't help notice the vast number of people who, for one reason or another, did not go into the water or venture off the island, while others were left wanting to see more."

Offering a memorable experience, irrespective of whether visitors travelled to the reef or not, was the driving motivation behind the 7800-square-metre, three-level Cairns Aquarium and Reef Research Centre, which opened last September. Located in the heart of Cairns CBD, the aquarium took six years of exhaustive planning and collaborations spanning hundreds of people from dozens of specialist firms.

From the outside, the building itself makes an impressive, architectural statement. Exterior walls comprise a series of giant, 11.5-metre-high, "tectonic" plates symbolising the movement of the earth over time that has caused the region's mountain ranges to rise up along the coast, while sapphire-blue glass panels along the 90-metre length give people a glimpse of the living ecosystems inside. Inside, you could lose yourself for hours.

The aquarium houses a staggering 15,000 aquatic animals, fish, plants and other organisms within 71 live exhibits that have been curated with interpretative material and tours, providing visitors with a journey through life-like habitats. Julie Cullen, the aquarium's general manager, says visitors follow the story of a drop of rain through five geographical locations: the Wet Tropics, Cape York, Gulf Savanna, Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea.

The standout attraction is the Deep Reef exhibit, a 300,000-litre, 10-metre-high exhibit that gives a view of the stratified coral outcrops that range from the sunlight bathed shallows to the darker, lower depths of the drop off. On the upper level, reef fish swim through the exhibit, while deep foraging nocturnal fish can be observed in the lower levels; something previously only accessible to experienced deep water divers.