Friday 31 August 2012

Cairns continued...

After Green Island we went back to the mainland and spent the afternoon white water rafting on the Barron River - this was probably my favourite part of the trip. It was so much fun. It was a Grade 3 on a scale of 1-6. Our guide, Roddy (the guy at the back of the raft in the photo below), was hilarious and made the experience really funny. He described Grade 1 as a 'fart in the bath' and Grade 6 as 'you will probably hurt yourself badly'. There were 3 guides and Roddy chose me and James to go into his raft along with ladies who were sisters aged between 50 and 60, all grand mothers. These ladies were good old Aussie 'sheilas' who loved turning everything into a dirty joke, and boy did they enjoy having James to include in these jokes. It was so funny, every possible opportunity they were making comments about needing mouth to mouth (after being knocked into the river by Roddy) 'Ohhhh Jaaaaaames, doctoorrrr, I need the kiss of life!!' One of the manoeuvres we had to learn was the honeymoon shuffle (rocking your hips back and forth when the raft gets stuck on a rock), when ever this move was used the ladies went wild - it really was so funny! James was at the front blushing away and paddling furiously to compensate for their lack of paddling - they were too busy joking around to help much. Anyways, it was really fun and having these characters with us made the experience all the more memorable. 



Rafting on the Barron River


James and his ladies




The next day we took a 12 hour tour up to the Daintree forest and Cape Tribulation. It was a day full of beautiful natural scenery, only slightly tarnished by some very annoying Spaniards with long lens cameras, snapping constantly at everything. The worst was on the Daintree river when we were on a boat looking for crocodiles, it clearly said 'do not lean over board, crocs can jump!' However this group of snap happy chappies were hanging off the edge of the boat at every opportunity, even invading my personal space by almost resting on my head to steady the camera, it was ridiculous. The evil part of me was hoping a croc would jump up and know that ridiculous lens out of his hand!




The only one on the trip to get into the cold lake!

In he goes...!



Cape Tribulation

Little Wallaby


Befriending the blind one that no one else wanted to feed

Baby crocodile

Big croc


The following day we had a 4am pick from the hotel to go on a sunrise hot air balloon ride. Although setting your alarm for 3 something is horrible it was worth it. We arrived at the farm land at about 5am and watched the balloons inflate and take off with the first group, then it was back into the bus to 'chase the ballons' and then finally get in for our 30 minutes, just after sunrise. It looks like it would be scary but you barely feel the movement and the landing was so soft. It's as close to flying as I've got (I haven't been sky diving like James!).

4am hot air ballon start

There comes the sun...

Posing like our fellow Asian tourists - it's never too early for a peace sign


xoxo

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