18
Location: Cairns
Although today was our intrepid group’s final day among the Aussies, it began just like any other: an early awakening followed by a bus ride to our next, and in this case, sadly, final adventure. We ate breakfast, or brekkie, in the local dialect, our two-hour bus ride to the Tully River, located deep in the middle of the rainforest – the oldest forest in the world. While we all knew what we were about to do, nobody could have expected the true intensity of what was to come. Thankfully, our guide, lovingly nicknamed “Ryan 2.0” made us feel safe as we paddled our way through class 1-4 rapids. We quickly learned to work as a team, coordinating our movements as he yelled forward paddle, back paddle, hold on – and most importantly – get down! We had a few tight situations (literally, as our raft got stuck between two rocks), but we worked together to get out of them, and are proud to say that none of us fell out of the raft (other than the one time that we all did it on purpose). It was an awesome last adventure in Australia. It was a long drive back to Cairns, but full of beautiful scenery with sugar cane fields on one side and banana fields on the other, with the sun setting behind the mountains nearby. Once in town, we got cleaned up and headed out to our final dinner together at a local Thai restaurant. Full of Pad Thai we returned to our motel for one last squeeze and of course one last round of Tim Tams.