So, what a day.... White water rafting, grade four, through cyclone ravaged crocodile infested waters near Cairns. The day started at 6am, ouch. Got the bus at half six and headed off for the two hour drive to the river, the river Tully. On the way we went through the parts of Queensland that got hit the worst with the Cyclone (which incidently was worse than Hurricane Catriona apparently.. maybe Katrina???). We saw lots of pretty devasted forrest and jungle and the entire banana crop looked ruined, the largest banana plantation in the southern hemisphere. So the price of bananas might go up!!!

Anyway, we were seperated into groups, six in ours. We had the main guide as our captain. He was gas, he looked like a less ugly version of Wayne Rooney and he was a deadly laugh. He took an instant like/dislike to the two Irish gobeens and took the piss out of us all day. We rafted for about 12km down the river throughout the day, stopping for lunch half way down. We went through loads of deadly rapids with lots of waves crashing in over the boat and drenching us. Regina fell out on nearly every bump along the way, she nearly even fell out of the bus when it went over a speed bump on the way there!!!! When we cast off first he told us we could all jump in and the water was sooooo warm, it was lovely. We swam down a bit and climbed back in and off we went

All along the river bank, apart from one spot, the trees and jungle were really bare. He told us that before the cyclone you couldnt see more than a few metres into the jungle but now you can see well into it and he reckoned it would take about 100 years for the jungle to regrow properly, especially after Cyclone Larry hit a few years just before. There was one section of the river that didnt seem affected at all and you can see the massive difference between the two. Part way along the the river, there was a big rock in the middle of the river, we pulled up to it and got to jump off back into the water.... dont worry folks, the crocs are a bit further down and it was very very deep here, and we had life jackets on too and crash helmets. I am very tired right now, I shouldnt be writing this now.

The day was brilliant though, I am really glad we finally got to do some rafting. It wasnt cheap, but it really felt like value for money. All the guides on the different boats were really sound and as we each passed one another we would splash the other boats and it was all good fun. Two of the boats were full of asians, and they were screaming like crazy and it was great watching em fall in :)

Cant think of anything else to say about it, the group we went with was Raging Thunder, and as I said, not cheap but great value really. That was today, back in the hostel now after free dinner down the town again.... mmm free dinner. Off to Cape Tribulation in two days time, should be good if the weather holds up, it was glorious all day down in Tully while it rained like mad here in Cairns, its worse than home here.... right, no more waffling now, time for bed I think, or tea and toast then bed.....

PS, we have no photos from today, sorry.... it was too wet to take the camera and the ones they take were a right rip off, 100 dollars for 27 photos of our boat and you could only see me in two and Regina in none