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Published: January 18th 2008
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Day 256 (08.12.07)
A big thanks begin this entry, this time to the Christopher family as this was their wedding present to us - thank you all - it was fantastic!
Another early start (not really a surprise now) saw us out of the hostel and on the minibus before 7am to make the journey to the Tully River a couple of hours south of Cairns. On the bus we got chatting to a couple of really nice Aussie ladies, Kate and Sarah, and decided to team up to go in a raft together.
After sorting out groups we arrived on the bank of the Tully River where we slipped into our rather fetching life jacketsand helmets and armed ourselves with our white water paddles. Now looking the part and ready for our river wild rafting experience we took the path to the river edge and went through our 'training' where we were told what we needed to do for certain calls. They didn't take too much figuring out and we were pretty sure we would remember them - 'Hold on', 'Get down', 'Jump right' and 'Jump left' - with the level of stress and volume in our
guide Kate's voice determining how urgent they were!
After a bit of a practice still tethered to the bank we pushed off and it was now a simple case of us against the river. Mark and Sarah decided to try their utmost to scare themselves and volunteered for the seats right at the front of the raft while Chrissie and Kate, feeling a little more apprehensive, opted for the 'safer' back seats! We were joined by two Korean lads making up our crew of 6. It wasn't long until we were moving from the relatively calm waters to the frothing white stuff.
We had a very short warm up of a couple of grade 1 and 2 rapids before we hit our first grade four (rapids are graded from 1 to 6 with grade 5 being the highest commercial grade), Alarm Clock. It was amazing speeding toward a drop of white water where if you were not holding on properly you would end up in the drink! The training had obviously paid off as we flew through it without incident. A good start.
Into the next quieter bit we were all instructed to jump out of the
raft and float down the next section of river in the safety position (on the back with feet up on the surface facing forward) so we knew what it would feel like if we fell out. This was a great way of taking away any remaining nerves so we could really relax into the day. We clambered back into the raft for our next rapids encounter.
Continuing down the river we went through rapid after rapid ranging from grade 3-4, some with huge drops, some with tight gaps. A favourite of ours was called full stop drop in a section of the river called the Theatre (because it's where all the action happens!). This sent you down a series of pretty big drops ending with the biggest. Ordinarily this would be manageable, however just after the last drop there is a massive boulder that you career headlong into crumpling up the boat and passengers like a concertina! Lots of fun!
Thoroughly soaked and having laughed our way down the river we were coming up to the picnic ground where we were to be having lunch. Before we got there we paddled under a massive waterfall. The power of
the water falling into the boat (and onto our heads!) was incredible!
After a great lunch and a quick feed of the resident fish and huge eel, we were back in the raft for an afternoon of the same death-defying drops and rolling rapids. Exhilarating! The scenery (which we managed to concentrate on during some quieter times!) was beautiful, apparently the oldest rainforest in the world.
We got to a point where our guide Kate asked us if, as we hadn't managed to do it by accident, we would like to flip the raft over to see what it was like. Earlier in the day we might have been a little alarmed by this prospect but we were now truly up for it! We paddled towards a rapid section we'd just come down and all jumped to the right on Kate's command, the raft flipped sending us all flying under the water and beneath the raft. Tremendous fun! There was a surprising amount of air space beneath the raft so we could take our time orientating ourselves before making our way out from underneath and finally righting the raft and clambering back in again.
As we had
kept good time we all got off at a large rock to jump in. It was quite interesting jumping in with a life jacket on - as you immediately bobbed like a cork back to the surface. Mark ended the day by taking over the guide's driving job - doing a terrible meander down the river.
After being in the sun all day and doing a lot of paddling we got back on the bus feeling pretty tired but extremely content having had a great day.
Picking up one of the photographs taken of us during our descent of the river we got back on the bus destined for Cairns. We went back for a shower and relax before meeting Kate and Sarah at the Woolshed for dinner and some drinks and ending the evening with a walk along the waterfront.
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The Christopher clan
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Tully River
So glad you enjoyed the white water rafting experience. It looked like tremendous fun. Loved looking at Mum and Dad's photos. They had a brill time with you. You will be in Melbourne by now. Hope you manage to find work. Loadsa luv Primmy and Ped xx