Whitewater Rafting!

Yesterday was the most thrilling part of the trip so far! We were picked up at the hotel at 6:30 am and whisked off to the town of Tulley about 150 km south of here. After being fitted with wetsuits and helmets, we headed up to the Tully River for a day of whitewater rafting. Having been rafting before, we expected to spend the day lazily floating down the river with intermittent rapids to stir things up a bit. It turned out to be quite the opposite! We spent most of the day in class 3 and 4 rapids with intermittent areas of calm water.

From the very start, we were getting tossed about in the rapids. Our boat had 6 Americans and two Aussie guides. We should have known this was a different kind of rafting when they made us jump out of the boat and practice rescue techniques! By the end of the day, at least two of the five boats had flipped and a good number of tourists got tossed out of the boat, myself included. I made it all the way until the last class four rapid of the day and then fell out when our guide tried to intentionally flip the boat. Luckily it was toward the end of the rapid and I just floated down to the next calm pool.

When we weren't rafting, we stopped by the side of the river for rock jumping. I even got Christina to jump off a 30 foot cliff! They also had us get in the water and float down some of the rapids on our back. The worst part for Christina was when they had us all sit at the front of the boat and go over a waterfall to knock us all out. Somewhere in the chaos, I apparently pushed her under the boat and she had to fight to get back up.

In the end, I had a fantastic day. I can't say the same for Christina, but at least she's still speaking to me. I don't know if I'll ever get her back on a whitewater trip though!