the adventures continue :)

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had to get up stupidly early as we were being picked up at 7.35am to go rafting. still, it was totally worth it, rafting was ace!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i never thought that i would enjoy it as much as i did, but we all had such an amazingly fun day!

we went with a company called raging thunder who were brilliant. our guides (or whatever you call them!) were great, two blokes, vince (who looked an awful lot like a cross between vin diesel/sly/arnie) and baz (who was just pretty 😊) who did everything they could to make sure we had oodles of super fun 😊

ah, slight twist, me, laura and sarah booked on to the normal rafting but somehow ended up doing the extreme rafting day!! eep! they told us after (thank god - think i might have had something to say about it if they'd said before!!) that it was because not enough people signed up for the extreme so they "moved us". nice one, lol.

the river that we were rafting on is called the tully river, which is apparently one of the best rivers in the world to go white water rafting on. not really sure of the reasons why, but who am i to argue?!

we had to hire wetsuit jackets and 'jesus sandals', so we all looked hilarious 😊 especially once we had donned our wonderfully cool life jackets and helmets! just added to the overall hilarity of the day really!

i was in baz's boat with laura, sarah and two couples (one from melbourne, one from sydney). so yeah, rafting was brill! we did all sorts, the raft got tipped a hell of a lot (which was quite scary at first, but after the second and third times it was just fun 😊) and i soon discovered that i have a total lack of upper body strength making it very very hard to get back into the raft once i was out!!!! an awful lot of swimming was done that day. so glad that i wore my belt (even though it got totally ruined 😞) as i would have almost definitely lost my skate pants otherwise!

got to know everyone really well - you kind of have to when they're trying to haul you back into the raft or they've been flung across the raft and have ended up sitting in your lap! it was a right laugh 😊 we saw loads of lizards basking on rocks as we headed down the river too - you know, the ones that run so fast that they can actually walk on water? apparently they are quite commonly known as jesus dragons. for obvious reasons 😊

arrrrghhh, scary fact that baz decided he simply must share with us - mission beach is one of the most dangerous places to be in australia, because not only is the red back prevalent there, they also have the taipan (one of the world's most deadly snakes) and they get a lot of shark attacks. brilliant 😊 there goes swimming in the sea! aaah, and we mustn't forget the saltwater crocs! everything in this country is out to kill you!!

we did some rock walking which was cool, and we went down a waterfall chute thing, which was sooooooo good!!!!! apparently its "the only way to experience a rapid without actually being in the raft". whether you believe that or not is upto you 😊 still, it was great fun - you have to hold onto your life jacket with one hand, your nose with the other and go down on your back! you go down to a depth of about 4 metres and then just pop back up to the surface! totally immense 😊

in all we did like 5 hours of rafting. and like i keep saying, it was brilliant!!!!! sooooo worth it, and if i had had the time i would have loved to have done it again.

that evening a group of about 10 of us went out in mission beach (not that there was much to do!!). we ended up going to a bar called coconutz which closed at 12, and then we all walked back along the beach and had a bonfure which was really lovely. an awesome end to an awesome day really 😊

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