Rafting the Tully - Racing the Whitsundays

Hello all!! Well this is our last day here in Airlie Beach. It's a cool little place. Very touristy though... there are tons of backpackers. We are headed for Rainbow Beach on the overnight bus later on. It's about a 12 hour ride so we're not looking forword to that.

Anyway - we've done a couple things since our last blog. After Cairns we had gone to Mission Beach for a couple days to test our skills at Whitewater Rafting. This was not the first time rafting for both Nate & I... but it definitely was the most intense one!! We rafted the Tully River for over 5 hours and took on approximately 45 rapids over about 17 kms!! That's pretty crazy if you ask me. I can't say we all managed to stay in the raft... at one point our raft flipped right up from below us leaving the 6 of us having to swim to the other side of the river!! There was a point along the river that we rafted and then pulled ashore. Everybody followed the guides back to the beginning of the rapid we just did and told us to jump in and swim it!!! Didn't look to bad but I was definitely in for a shock when I swore I was going to drown!! Haha - that was something else as you couldn't catch your breath from all the water slamming into you face and body. Don't know if I would do that again. Did some cliff jumping off the rock they call 'Jabba The Hut'. The riverside BBQ filled our bellies at noon before we took off down the river again. Hard to describe what we were experiencing so check out the pictures and I'm sure they'll do all the talking for me!! It was a long tiring day but definitely one of the highlights of my trip!!

From Mission Beach we went to Magnetic Island. Nathan won a TNT magazine contest 6 months ago where we won two nights accommodation, ferry transfers and a meal for each of us!! The tickets expired the day after we used them... nothing like waiting til the last minute!! How were we so lucky to show up on the island and it was raining. The locals said this was the first time it has rained on the island in 3 months!! Lucky us!! Anyway - we didn't get to explore too much because of the rain and the cold winds coming off the ocean. So we enjoyed it the best we could and visited the local rock wallabies for awhile. Nothing too exciting compared to the rafting and what was coming up!!! When we left the island it was a gorgeous sunny day... surprise surprise. We were now headed for Airlie Beach.

Last Saturday (June 9) Nathan and I departed from Airlie Beach on the ex-racing yacht "Southern Cross" for our 3 day/2 night sailing adventure around the Whitsunday Islands. I'll admit I was definitely nervous for this one as I have a tendancy of getting seasick. We must have picked the perfect weekend for it though as the weather cooperated for us 100%. Over 3 days we sailed, suntanned and snorkelled nonstop. The party would begin later on at night after our dinner and would go to all hours of the morning!! Early mornings had us waking up to the sunrise over the islands. Can't really complain about that!! One of the island highlights for me was when we went to Whitehaven Beach. It was definitely something I have never seen before. I felt as though I had just walked into paradise!! The sand was so white and the water so blue/green!! Again - hopefully you'll get the idea when you check out the pictures!!

We had a smaller group of 16 in total including Josh & Cat, our crew. It was a good size as we all became pretty close by the end of the 3 days. We were very lucky in that our last day heading home we got some really good winds and we put our yacht to the test!! The boat was literally on it's side slicing through the waters. Haha - that was cool... but hard to find a seat as it was like trying to sit on a steep slide and not go down. Challenging but we managed to keep all 16 of us on the boat!! That was the sailing highlight for me... and probably for Nathan as well.

Well that's about it for my updates. Like I said before we are leaving for Rainbow Beach tonight where on Friday we are going to Fraser Island for 3 days to do some camping and 4x4ing. It's supposed to be gorgeous there as it is the largest sand island in the world I'm told!! Can't wait to get there!!

E&N