Hi Guys

I did the extreme rafting on Tully River. It was fantastic i dont think i have ever had so much fun in the water before. It was extremely scary though as two people had died this year on Tully river due to the boat tipping over and them getting stuck under the rocks and drownding. Some of the rapids were huge. I met some great people on my boat and we had such a great time. All the rapids have there own names and one section terrified the life out of me. It was four rapids in one, straight after each other. One of then was really scary the guide had said if you dont do exactly as i say the boat will tip over. We were having to get through a gap in the rocks that was half the size of the boat. He said when i say you have to jump to the right and straight away when i say you have to jump to the left so the boat doesnt tip over. I had thoughts of dying at this point, i was thinking what if i dont hear him say jump to the right or left etc. When you are nervous anyway you concentrate more which can actually make you hear something else. Anyway we managed to get through the rock and the next comand was "GET DOWN" so obviously we all got down but the louder he was shouting, was making me more nervous because you know that this is life or death situation. Once we got past this part of the rapids i had so much fun (the two guys both died in that place) The boat was completely filled with water at one point, you will be able to see from the photos when i get them on. With the extreme rafting it isnt any different from the normal one except you are in a smalled group and you get to do activities in the water. The first one was body surfing i absolutely loved that. Basically the way the rocks are formed make like a whirl pool in the rapids that push and pull you so if you jump into it you stay there. Anyway you stand on a rock and throw yourself into this pool on your belly and relax (yeah easier said than done) it feels like you are flying on water kind of, untill a big gust of water comes and makes you go under the water and you fly off haha you actually have to be a good swimmer to do this so you can get yourself to the side and out of the rapids but the guide is there on hand with a rope just in case. The second part was flying down some rapids on your back, now this was great fun. We got the boat to the top of these rapids and stuck it behind a rock so it didnt go anywhere and you throw yourself from the boat into the rapids. You go down this massive drop (very deep water at the bottom) hold your breath and five seconds after you get dragged under the water you pop back up miles away from the chute. That was so much fun but i was thinking while i was under the water, i am going to come back up, five seconds doesnt sound a lot but when you are under water in rapids it lasts ages. The next one was jumping from this very high rock into the rapids, my ears popped because it was that high and you seem to last ages under the wter again but eventually pop back up again. That was also so much fun as well. We did get thrown out of the boat a couple of times but to be honest i think that was the guide doing it on purpose because it was always in safe waters but still good practice incase it happened somewhere dangerous. The guy on our boat came out twice and one of the times it was a reall close call. If someone falls out we have to rescue them, we hit this huge rock and he fell out of the boat going down these rapids and there were rocks everywhere. The guide was screaming to get him back in the boat as we were heading for this huge rock. I could see the rock and just wanted to grab him becuase he would have been seriously injured but i couldnt get to the front to get him. I am not joking it was a case of about half of a second we got him back in the boat then we hit this huge rock it was such a close call. The guy didnt even realise how close it was but he would have been really hurt if he had of hit that rock. Luckily he did as the guide has said, hold onto the boat and lay on your back keep you legs up in front of you and arms close to you, You can kick your self from rocks if you need to. He only had bruises on his bum from when he was bouncing off the the rocks so that was really lucky. I would recomend rafting to anyone it was such a good laugh and the adrenaline is great. Ill get the photos on when i get somewhere that has USB leads.

Lots of Love

Gem xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx