White Water Rafting, Cairns, QLD, Australia

We're in Cairns, and what better way to start off our week here (or 2 weeks for me) than a day of grade 4 water rapids along the Tully River! Cairns is made for adrenalin junkies and so even if you are a novice at white water rafting, grade 4 rapids are definitely the ones to do.

An early start with a 6.40am pick up, we headed back down towards Mission Beach to the Tully. As the rain has been pouring for days, this was the best time to go rafting, a swollen river and much faster flowing water, making it much more exciting.

Equipment fitted, safety briefing done, off we went to meet our rafting instruction Lorenzo. We piled into our raft and went over the commands in which Lorenzo would be yelling at us throughout the day - "Get down" being my favourite as it meant we were about to hit a big hole and are likely to fall out the raft. After practicing our manouvers, off we paddled to practice falling out of the raft and scrabbling back in as well as rescuing the rest of our team - very funny! Instead of using our strength to pull up eachother from the water, the girls would normally full into heaps of laughter which meant any energy needed to yank someone back into the boat was next to nothing, much to Lorenzo's disappointment.

After nearly 5 hours of rafting, we were all pretty proud of ourselves, we had managed techincal rapids without falling out of the raft or injurying eachother with our paddles, we were just drenched with water and buzzing from the excitment. That was until... we hit a hole... and flipped!!! All 7 of us in the river, scrabbling to get out from under the raft and avoid all the boulders we were about to crash into. Swimming for safety and then the difficult task of trying to get back into the raft (Sarah pulled me in with only a fit of giggles once we were safe back in the boat), we all managed it uninjured. It was lots of fun flipping but later we managed to get Lorenzo to admit fault as he misjudged the rapid rather than it being our inexperience!

A great day out, with just aching muscles the next day. Next - bungy jumping tomorrow... not just 1 jump, but 2 jumps (and as I have jumped before, I can now jumped in 1 of 12 ways including backwards - I think not!!! Plus, a Minjin Swing which I have also done before and is lots of fun). Wish us luck!!!!