White Water Rafting

I found my pictures which were taken when I went white water rafting in Cairns, way back in 2003. I was inspired to post the pics after reading Sherie's account of her experience of white water rafting and caving in Malaysia. I am still a scaredy cat on the caving part - sliding down in pitch dark and jumping down into the stream - no, I can't do it.

White water rafting on the other hand is exhilarating and non-stop fun. See the smiling faces of everyone in all the pics.

We decided to go for broke and went rafting at Tully River, 2 hours south of Cairns. The rapids are graded 3-4 and there are over 45 rapids in the 12km long river. The river itself is technically graded 4.

I don't remember much but we had to carry our own raft down to the river. The usual safety talk and then the grouping. It was a 5-hour thing, with a break for lunch (bbq food). That was when I discovered the lips can actually be burnt by the sun. Yes, I had sunburnt on my arms and lips. Painful! But I also discovered the sunlight actually "cured" my eczema on my arms too - so smooth, no more bumps. So the doc in Vancouver was actually right, he said to get out in the sun for the eczema (but being in Vancouver where you stayed covered up about 3/4 of the times, it didn't work).

The rafting itself was pretty unevenful. We navigated the rapids like pros, thanks to the experienced guide. There was one part when we were going down the waterfall that all (except 1) tipped over and into the river. The guide told us to lean back when going down the waterfall. So everyone did that except for 1 guy. And thus all of us girls fell. But I think the guy felt bad, so he volunteered to jump into the river too to join us. Lol. It was good to fall into the river as the sun was scorching and it was actually very cool in the river. Great way to bond and cool off.

Other than that, I think a few others fell in during the 5 hours, but for me, it was only that one time. Oh and Bee gave everyone a scare when she toppled into the river barely we set off. Need to see the video to refresh memory on why/how she fell.

Enjoy the pictures :)