6 AM came early today. Earlier than 6 AM normally seems. Could be to the noisy/late entrances/exits of roommates in the room. Regardless, we packed our stuff away and lugged our bags down to reception to check out. Because we extended our stay until Wednesday rather than book the 7 days straight off the start, we are incoveniently being forced to switch rooms. But check-in time isn't until 2, so we have to check out, store our luggage, go on the raft trip, return, check in again, collect luggage, and move to a new room. So we went down around 6:30 (shuttle picking us up at 6:40) with our stuff and attempted to check out. But we weren't listed on the check-out list. And we weren't listed in a room either. So after a struggle of a conversation with a difficult front desk employee, we finally were allowed to store our bags and figure out the mess later.
We were driven on a bus about an hour and a half south to the town of Tully, which has a gorge and river running through it. We stopped at a backpacker place where there was tea and coffee ready for us and we grabbed some food for breakfast. Watched a very dull safety video (are they ever interesting?) and hopped back on the bus. From town, we were driven up to the top of the river system in the mountains and hopped out to put on lifejackets and helmets. We selected a paddle and walked down a trail to the river in our newly formed groups. Brennan and I were with a small British gal, a Chinese girl and her older mother and aunt. Super group is an understatement (sarcasm). We set off and paddled 4 KM of river with a few rapid sections and did some floating out of the boat in the water, getting pushed along the stream. At the 4 KM mark, we tied up the rafts and hopped on shore for a hot lunch that was prepared for us by the crew. Burgers, hot dogs, real mustard (not the mustard seed spread that is so common here), juice and water. Next to the table we saw easily the biggest spider we've come across anywhere on its web. Including the long legs, it was a bit bigger than the size of a hand, with a thick body and big fangs to go with it. Creepy. Everyone finished lunch and it was back into the rafts for 8 KM more river. We hit several more rapids along the way. Each rapid seems to have a crazier name than the last like alarm clock, corkscrew, shark's tooth, etc. But they aren't very intense to deserve such bad ass names. The river and rapids on the Tully River are grade 4 (with grade 6 being the highest grade of difficulty) but I was a bit underwhelmed to be honest. The river and rapids are essentially all rideable without doing any paddling at all and going down the rapids is often slow. And the rafts are super sturdy and stable, so in order to fall out (like what happens in all their promo videos) you have to really try to push yourself out. There were 2 or 3 sections in the trip that bounced the raft up and down a bunch and a drop that we rode down backwards, which were all fun, but the majority were pretty meh. It didn't help the speed that we had to stop and wait for all the rafts to do each section before moving on and that we often had to wait and go one at a time so the photographers could take pictures of each group individually either. One cool part was when we came to a big rock that was almost worn into steps on the one side that we all climbed up and cliff jumped off, down about 20 feet into a deep water section below.
After the 8 KM after lunch, we hauled the rafts out of the water and dropped them onto a trailer, towelled off, and were driven back to the hostel where we had tea in the morning. They had a plate of potato wedges for each group and little digital picture frames with all the photos taken of each group. Because Brennan and I were in the front of the raft (so there would be some muscle steering to counter the guide paddling in the back) almost every shot was just a mint photo of us two with the faces of the rest of the group either obscured or not showing at all. Luck of the draw on seating for that as it turns out. We split the cost of a USB flash drive with the photos on it with the Chinese ladies. The bus ride back provided some time to catch up on sleep missed the night before. Back at the hostel we loaded the pictures onto the computer and then I ran it over to the Chinese ladies at their hotel. We changed and then went for the free nightly meal (which never changes, so of the 3 options of tomato soup, spaghetti, and curry sausage with rice, we opted for the sausage/rice combo) as an appetizer (the portion is small) and a lamb gyros wrap from a Greek restaurant down the street from the hostel for the main course. Watched some X Factor (like a terrible yet hugely popular version of American Idol) with horrendously karaoke performances and song choices and played some cards with the Irish before another early end to the night. Up at 6 AM again tomorrow to go snorkeling and scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef. I hope we see Nemo!
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