February 28 - Australia: Cairns, Queensland
Poor Jon. He's caught my cold. I suppose it was inevitable, but it's a drag for him because he knows what he's in for. While I don't feel "sick" anymore, the cold is still hanging on. My nose and cough just won't go away, and my ears have yet to clear. So he's in for a good week of suffering. It's even more of a drag since Mike's in town and so Jon won't have much of a chance to relax as he would if we were on our own. There's never a good time for a cold, but for Jon this is definitely bad timing.
Raging Thunder Rafting Trip
At 9:45, we went across the street to meet our pick-up for our half-day rafting trip. Extreme Green is a smaller "sister company" to Raging Thunder. It offers no-frill trips for less prices, but also is a bit more personal service. (If that makes sense).
On the bus trip, we met our two nutty guides - Nick and Mick - who took eight of us down the Barron River for a half-day trip. The rafting was hardly technical, but it was a lovely day for a river trip. The rapids were class 2-3, and the water was pretty low. The water marks on the rocks were a couple of feet up. Mick took the three of us and a guy named Mark from Scotland. The other four people went with Nick. We had a great time, learning Mick's rafting commands, splashing the other raft with our oars, and then beginning to dodge rocks and rapids. Because the water was so low, the rapids weren't very fierce. And we spent a majority of the time getting ourselves unstuck from various rocks.
We reached one particular rock that Mick and Nick called "The Slide". We jumped out of the rafts and Nick positioned one of the rafts up against the rock so we could use it as a ladder to the top. There, we slid down the rock - feet first, head first on our back, head first on our stomach, and jumping off the rock. It was a blast. Then we got back in the rafts and headed down the rest of the river.
At one particular rapid, there was a bit of congestion among all the rafters on the river as we tried to "surf" on the rapid. This involves filling the raft with water and positioning it in such a way that the rapids actually keep the raft in place rather than spitting it out into the river. It's a tricky physics thing, and we had a hard time getting it to work because there were only five of us in the raft. We couldn't sink the edge of the raft low enough into the rapid to get the water to flow correctly. So the rapid kept spitting us out. It wasn't for lack of trying, though. We tried over and over again for a good 15 minutes. At one point, four of us were leaning back on one corner of the raft to try to let water in. We leaned backward into the rapid further and further. Unfortunately, I must have let my head get a bit too close to the water. Next thing I knew - the top of my helmet got stuck in the water pressure and I was dragged backwards off the raft and into the water. I saw rapids and water and brown and rocks and felt frantically for the raft as I was tossed around underwater. After what seemed like an eternity, I was spit out on the other side of the raft only to find Nick in the water looking for me. But I was just fine and was laughing about the fun trip. I climbed right back in the raft to have a go at the surfing again. This "sucked under" thing happened to three of us while we were there, and by the end of it we all considered ourselves experts in white water. But we never got the surf to work.
Then we kept rafting on down the river. After about 1.5 hours of rafting, we hit the calm part of the river. So we all jumped in and coasted down the river, sitting on our life jackets. It was a great - albeit short - rafting trip.
The Barron River - the end of the trip
Lunch at the Cock and Bull
We took Mike to the Cock and Bull for lunch. The Cock and Bull is a pub right around the corner from our townhouse, and the food is pretty good. Jon and I both had fish-n-chips, and Mike had chicken schniztel, which turned out to be fried chicken. We had a good laugh about our morning, and - since it was 2:30 in the afternoon - tried to figure out what to do for the rest of the day. As we were talking about Australia, we decided that Mike should have his picture taken with a Koala Bear.
Trip To Wild World
So Mike and Jon spent the afternoon at Wild World, where they took a bunch of photos and watched a crocodile feeding. Here are their pictures.
A Baby 'Roo in a Mama 'Roo Pouch
Lunch Time!
Mike and a 12-month old Koala
A Sleeping Wombat
A Stork
Dinner at Rattle 'N Hum
For dinner, we took Mike to Rattle 'N Hum for Aussie steaks. The funny thing about this restaurant is that there are no waiters or waitresses. We look at the menu and then place our orders and pay at the order counter. Sometime later, somebody brings us our food. We decided that this is smart way to run a restaurant because it cuts back on overhead. As customers, it's up to us to go to the bar for drinks or to order more food. And it works all right because this place is always packed with people. Pretty smart!