Final Stop- Cairns

We travelled 8 hours on the coach and we arrived in tropical and stormy Cairns. More and perhaps the best of our adventures ocurred. We went out to a group dinner and an Irish PLUB ( that's a pub that turns into a club- look it up) We sunk a few then headed home to get some shut eye before our next day. We spent the next day travelling up to a place called Tully, home of bananas and the Tully River. We got a bus ride up in the mountains to the rainforest and the start of the Tully River- top 5 rivers in the world for white water rafting. Our guide told us this after we made it through all the rapids and top five also includes the Nile, the amazon and some river in Costa Rica. Not everyone was completely ready for this expereince and there were some nerves. BUT, our guide, Paully, was amazing and coached us the first level 4 rapids successfully, giving us confidence as a tema to make it down the rest of the 14 km of river without dumping anyone (intentionally). The rapids consisted of class 2,3 and 4. There was actually a class 5 but insurance companies don't insure if you go down these so we went around this one. We actually went in the end of the raft and our guide intentionally dumped us all causing fear for our lives. But, a huge rush nonetheless. The highlights were swimming without a raft down a class III rapid. Jenn and Michelle hit the shore and said "That was the worst thing I have ever done." Marissa was quoted saying "that was awesome" and proceeding for round 2. Amy's thoughts were "that was crazy". We also jumped off a rock that might have been in the range of anywhere between 10 and 50 ft. There is some discrepancy on this one since it was rather intimidating for us all and we considered it a HUGE accompishment. We also expereinced a huge rain storm in the middle of the river. THe rain was warm and was pelting us hard but was one of the most amazing scenes ever and there was no where else we wanted to be at that time then on the river. We were also able to see waterfalls along the river, one which was actually the backdrop in Jurassic park called champagne falls. They had to use 30,000 bottles of champagne to get a better glimpse of the water going over the fall. Wow, an intense day but one of the greatest adventures of the trip.