Advertisement
Published: April 2nd 2008
Stock Photo
The Barron RiverI know I know...the mother sent me a comment to guilt trip me into sacrificing sleep to write this blog entry. Juuust kidding! I've been meaning to write one for the past 8 days or so, but time seems to get away from me! So lets go back to 2 weekends ago...
Easter weekend is kind of big deal here. On Good Friday, everything shuts down. Foodstores, restaurants, bars, everything! Since everyone has off on Friday, you could see many people taking the opportunity to have a night out on the town. We were not a part of this category of people, despite having our 2nd four day weekend in a row. Woohoo! The only downside to our mini-vacation is that apparently people decided that their animals needed to go to the vet before they were closed for the holiday. Christina and I left at 6:30, 2 and a half hours later than normal. Buuut it was totally worth it since I was able to prepare for and monitor a surgery! There was only 1 tech working mid-day and she had to be up front dealing with the clients. Annabelle had to reopen a spay since she suspected that the
"DID YOU SAY BACKPADDLE??"
Annie and I had a difficult time hearing our guide. stitches burst, resulting in a hernia. It was the 2nd one that she had to redo that day, and I have never seen that happen the past 6 weeks. Such bad timing! I was sooo nervous, especially since I am still a little intimidated by Annabelle...although I have gotten much more comfortable as the weeks have passed. I had to scrub it down with iodine and chlorhex, then give Annabelle her drapes and tools while maintaining sterile conditions. For some reason I fail at easily ripping open the paper bag with the drapes inside them. When we pack drapes we put the drapes in a paper bag, then fold that one up and put it inside another paper bag. This way I can rip open the outer bag and the surgeon rips open the inner bag, keeping everything sterile. I always feel like I am going to touch the inner bag, so I get a little flustered haha. So there I was with a stethoscope, monitoring the heart rate and doing all that serious stuff. I was so excited about it! The extra hours were totally worth it.
We really wanted to do something this weekend since it was
I'm ready!
In the ready position a long one, but we didn't plan ahead enough to take advantage of the 4 days off. Instead we decided to stick to the Cairns area and went white-water rafting on the Barron River. The waterfall from the Kuranda pictures is the Barron River. Saturday was the first time the company was allowing groups to raft on the river since the 2 straight weeks of rain caused the river to rise so high. As we went down the river you could see string and debris on tree branches from where the water had risen. It was crazy to imagine the water getting that high! Although rafting was once again allowed, the water was still higher and more powerful than normal. Our sharehouse office tried to convince us to go for the apparently more exciting (and twice as expensive!) trip down a different river but I doubt we needed much more excitement, especially since it was my first time rafting. Rafting is all kinds of awesome. I don't know why it took me so long to try it (although the lack of rapids in New Jersey may have something to do with it...haha).
Christina, Annie, and Micah (the new vet
Rapids
Look at the danger we are putting ourselves through! from the clinic), and I all were obviously going to be in the same raft, and we were joined by Chris and Lynn from England. Chris and Lynn were probably in their 60s. I'm sure its not a stretch of the imagination to see why the head rafting guy chose our group to guide. The other groups were mostly young guys. We asked Luke (our guide) if he chose us because we looked like the weakest bunch and he assured us that was not the case. I am a tad suspicious still, but maybe he just picked the group of cute girls haha. We had to carry the rafts (on our heads! I wish I had a picture of that) down to the river from the bus and we were given a quick lesson in rafting lingo and paddling techniques. Annie and I chose the front seats, Christina and Micah were in the middle, and Chris and Lynn in the back. Annie has previous rafting experience from Tennessee and she hinted that the front was the safest spot. Consider it taken! An added bonus is that we are clearly seen in every picture the photographer took of our boat. I
Take cover!
Embarrassingly, I am the first one to duck for cover am ruthless when it comes to free t-shirts and pictures...my roommates will strongly attest to this fact haha.
Our first bit of rapids was right after the rafts floated away from the shore. Since our guide was the leader, we had to go first and stay near the rapids in case any of the boats following us tipped and he had to help rescue people from floating down the river. I was so nervous that I would forget the (rather simple) commands and cause our boat to tip that I was almost giddy. We made it through uneventfully and turned to watch the other boats. The first boat...tipped. The guides carry ropes to throw out to pull people to the raft, and we pulled the man into our raft. As we were pulling him into our boat, the second raft went through the rapids...and tipped. Luke had to pull his rope in really quickly to throw it out once again. The third boat made it through. The fourth boat tipped. People were floating downstream, and we had to chase the paddles since the bus had already left with the equipment. And this was all within the first 15 minutes!
Splash
Annie: "AHHHHH*glubglug*" Needless to say, at the end of the trip ours was the only boat that didn't tip. Thanks Luke! There were 4 sets of rapids, and I'm sure you can tell the worst one from the pictures. Some of my favorite moments: In one of the pictures you can see the wave hitting our faces. All I heard from Annie was "AHHHHHH*glubgulg*" During the worst part we had to dock our boat on a rock so Luke could get out and be ready to throw his rope. At first Annie and I were sitting on the top of the raft to anchor it to the rock, but I noticed we were drifting away without Luke so we had to get out to hang onto the raft. Luke was like "Ok ladies, I need you to sit on this rock and hold the raft." Annie, eager to be helpful to our cute guide, leaped out of the boat. She promptly slipped and fell onto her stomach on the rock. Luke pointed out that the loud slapping noise must have been painful. I died laughing, trying to wipe the tears out of my eyes while holding onto the raft. It was hilarious,
The Scene of the Fall
Annie and I holding onto the raft in the background. even though poor Annie was so embarrassed. Even thinking about it now gives me a chuckle.
In conclusion, white water rafting is awesome and everyone should do it. If you have a cute young guide, even better, but don't rush out and try to impress him. 😊
Rafting was tiring and my shoulders were sore the next day but I thankfully got to sleep in. Annie decided to attend the 5:30am sunrise mass and Christina went as well, even though she came home from the bar at 5:15am completely drunk. Annie was not pleased to say the least. After I woke up and they took a nap, we decided to make our guy roommates dress nicely to go to brunch at the botanical gardens. It was not a successful venture, with one roommate being moody and picking on the poor waiter/refusing to eat his meal, and the Korean guys being unfamiliar with the food served and putting syrup on their salad (which wasn't a big deal, just kinda funny). It started to rain during brunch, another strike against the day, but it cleared up as we were walking out. Annie and I decided to walk around the gardens
since we were dressed in our Easter outfits and thought it would make for good pictures. Sadly neither of us have any sense of direction and we found ourselves unable to find our way out of one area for like 20 minutes. And I'm sure some people thought it would be difficult to find another person who gets as easily lost as me! There were a lot of pretty flowers, a fern house, and an orchid house. We wandered around for like an hour and a half before catching a bus back home.
On Tuesday I came home to find the package from the mother in my room. 19 lbs of snacks and sheets. 😊 I'm glad I didn't have to lug it home from the sharehouse office! My roommates were all very jealous, especially of my cosy, washed twice in downy, sheets. It is such a relief to have something between me and the mattress cover thing. I don't know if cotton is in short supply in Australia, but bed/bath stuff is so expensive! I'm saving my Reese's peanut butter egg for a day when I really need a pick-me-up. The smaller bag of Swedish fish lasted a
Eh
Corny pose, but I knew the mother would like it. day, and the larger bag lasted about 4 days (and I was limiting myself!). Its no wonder I had to give them up after my root canal sophomore year. Remember all the Swedish fish my mom would send me jennifer? I forgot how good they are. I'm also halfway done with my Honey Bunches of Oats. Yuuuum.
All last week was so beautiful Tuesday-Friday..bright and sunny with hardly any humidity. As soon as the weekend began, clouds covered the sky and it began to rain. It was so upsetting! On Saturday (March 29) we tried to get to Palm Cove, but it started raining on the bus ride there, so we stopped off at Smithfield and browsed the mall for a bit. I had the most delicious smoothie from Boost called the Green Tea Mantra. Sunday was rainy, so I bummed around all day until later that night. It was Julian's birthday so he had a bunch of his friends come over and they ate Vienna rolls. It was so good that I think I am going to have to have a Vienna roll party myself when I get home. You have platters with cut fruits and veggies, lunch
meat, and seafood salad. You take rice wraps, which are very plastic-y originally, and dip them in hot water. This softens them up. You then put a bunch of stuff from the platters in the rice wrap and roll it up. I had fruit, veggies, and seafood in one, a combination that doesn't seem tasty at first glance, and it was soooo good! I just love Jae and Julian, and am so sad they are moving out next week. 😞 Paige left on Sunday, and Damien is leaving this Friday. It will just be me, Annie, and Christina until new roommates come in. I'm hoping for a cute Irish boy of course!
I'm now up-to-date until this week, which will have to be an entry of its own. Annabelle sent me, Christina, and Gianna (the new 5th year vet student) to work at Hartley's Crocodile Farm for two days. Maybe I will be ambitious and do it tomorrow? I also need to post updates about the cats since Derek's emails make me laugh.
Hope everyone is well, and Nan, I hope your knee infection clears up soon! My internship is over in 3 weeks, isn't that crazy? Time
went by so fast!
xoxo
Lindsay
Advertisement
Tot: 0.098s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0551s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jill
non-member comment
ferns!
Hi lindsay! White water rafting sounds so scary! You looked like a pro doing it though :) I saw all the pictures of the ferns and couldn't help but remember your good friend Frans that you saved from the dumpster in South. How is he doing these days?