Tully

Tully

We arrived back in Cairns on Sunday morning. Everything going like clockwork through immigration and baggage collection. We declared the fact that we had artefacts from PNG (Tia’s strategic purchases) and the fun began. Weaving, bamboo and coffee presented no problem. We had purchased however a wooden bowl from Madang that had teeny weeny little holes in it. The customs officer prodded and poked around for about 45mins and finally satisfied himself that it was okay – phew! Can you imagine what I would have had to endure if he had confiscated it? I think he sensed this and took pity on me.

Our car was waiting for us as promised and having turned on our phone were surprised to find a message from Jennie letting us know that her and Jason were in Cairns. We caught up with them for a quick coffee and after purchasing provisions for the fridge we set off for Mission Beach, about 2hrs south of Cairns and just outside Tully.

You may recall that I posed a quiz on the last blog. Which rafting adventure did we take? If you said the Extreme adventure you would have been right – no prizes for this however.

The day started at Mission Beach where we were staying. The bus picked us up with the driver, Vinnie. Vinnie turned out to be our guide for the trip and he was absolutely fantastic. He was naturally funny and a very competent rafting guide. Raging Thunder by the way is name of the firm and if you ever get the urge to go rafting in Tully, do it with them – very professional and friendly. Anyway, the group was split into two, those doing the Extreme adventure and all the other wimps. The Extreme group consisted of two boats and the other group about five boats.

You can imagine that Tia was feeling a little nervous about the whole rafting thing and in particular what “Extreme” meant. After some basic instruction we tackled the first rapid within minutes of being on the water.

I couldn’t help but put in a few extra strokes as we floated down the river and Vinnie quickly realised that I was keen to have a go at taking control of the raft. We made a deal that I would not put any extra strokes in (which tended to throw the raft off course anyway) and he would let me steer the raft later in the day. Our “Extreme” adventure included swimming down rapids on our back and shooting a waterfall without the raft. We also climbed up onto high rock ledges and jumped several meters into the river below. Our guide also deliberately tipped the raft over on a couple of occasions. In other words, we had a more intimate experience of the river.

Let me expand on a couple of the adventures.

Floating on our backs down a rapid sounds innocuous doesn’t it? Well the guides describe this experience as simulated drowning. The rapid consisted of a series of standing waves. As you hit the first wave you are sucked under the water. When you surface you have less than one second (seriously, not exaggerating) to take another breath before being hit by the next standing wave and being sucked under again. This happens about 5 times and just when you think you are about to run out of breath the rapid ends and you swim to the bank for a well deserved rest and to get your breath back. This is perhaps a once in a lifetime experience – WRONG! We all went back upstream to do it again. The second time should have been easier because you knew what was coming but I was starting to run out of energy by this time ( I am not 25 anymore you know). I seriously thought I was going to drown on the second attempt. Thankfully I didn’t and bravely pretended that it was a great experience. In fact it was but perhaps I should have done it only once.

Tia, with naturally built in buoyancy, floated down the rapid and while she also experienced the near drowning effect it clearly did not have the same impact.

The next ‘extreme’ experience entailed shooting a two metre waterfall on your back. Vinnie said that some people go down for up to 20 seconds when they reach the bottom of the fall. I was becoming a little gun shy at this stage but male bravado overcame my fear and away I went. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and thankfully I surfaced. Tia had decided not to do this stunt and instead shoot the waterfall in the raft. About half way down however she fell out of the craft and ended up shooting the rapid with Vinnie trying to control the raft and hanging onto Tia. What a stunt just to be the centre of attention!

No more extreme experiences for the rest of the trip.

In the end, we both agreed that it was a fantastic day and really worthwhile. Tia’s apprehension about rafting proved unfounded even doing the near death defying activities.

Needless to say we had a well deserved drink back at the camp and a good night’s sleep.

We are now heading west towards Darwin and the Kimberley’s.

Love to all,

Alan and Tia.