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I have never been so terrified, yet so exhilirated, in all my life! With no word of a lie, or any exaggeration what so ever, today we swam in a river with crocodiles...
Ok, ok, that sounds crazy and unbelieveable, and there's a little bit of clarification required to the story to make it sound reasonable, so here goes.... We did a tour with Foaming Fury, a company that specialises in white water rafting down the Barron River here in Cairns. None of the rafting companies are allowed to take any person under the age of 12 over any rapids that are category three or more, so none of them bother doing any trips for kids. Except for Foaming Fury, who do a family rafting trip down the Barron River, but only the very bottom end of the river, which is category 1 & 2 rapids. Now, pay attention... The rivers are safe for rafting because the crocodiles won't travel upstream of rapids, so the higher you go up the river, the safer you are. The rafting companies all drive to the top of the gorge, and raft downriver, through the rapids, and exit the river before the bottom, thus guaranteeing the river is free of crocs. But they're all grade 3 rapids, which we weren't allowed to do. So what we had to do, was enter the river at the lake, at the very bottom, and paddle upstream, dragging the rafts around the smaller grade 1 & 2 rapids, and then do more paddling, and more dragging, until we were at a spot where we could stop and swim, and muck about, before rafting down again, through all the same rapids. For this particular family rafting tour, there was ourselves, and the two guides. Noone else on the tour at all, just the six of us. The spot where we launched the rafts, (a large one and a small one), was directly behind a crocodile warning sign! This gave us no small cause for alarm, and we were genuinely worried what we'd got ourselves in for. Both the guides though, young guys, said there's no cause for concern, any crocs in the lake are only very small, and the largish one that was hanging around was successfully removed and relocated four months ago. This is true. We had a rafting and safety talk, (which seemed wierd before entering a known croc habitat), during which they explained what to do if we fell overboard, and how they would set about rescuing us. Reassuringly, they said if either of the boys fell over, they would jump in after them, and under no circumstances were Jo or I to go in after them (as if!!). But not so reassuringly, if Jo or I fell in, we were on our own...
We had life jackets, and helmets, and appropriate water shoes, for our 'safety', but the guides reckon they just make us more chewy... As we paddled across Lake Placid (isn't there a movie about that...with giant alligators? Jeremy remembered that...), the guides would occasionally slap their paddle down hard on the surface of the water. Jeremy, ever astute and curious, and knowing the answer before he even asked the question, wanted to know why they did it. One of the guides, Roddy (the funny one), told him it's like ringing the bell for the crocs to let them know dinner's served... At this stage, both the boys were sitting on the wall of the raft paddling, and Roddy pointed out that the crocs are probably sitting underneath looking, choosing which one of us they wanted to jump out of the water and eat. Smaller people are more tender and tasty, but bigger people fill them up more. Needless to say, both the kids sat down off the wall, and moved to the middle of the raft, as far from the edge as they could get, and weren't much help paddling after that. I laughed along with the jokes, but not because they were extremely funny, it was more of a nervous "holy crap, what are we doing?" sort of giggle... Anyway, we made it over the lake and up past the rapids, to a waterhole underneath the grade 3 rapids, which is where they set the rafts up for swimming and sliding down. The larger raft was turned upside down, and positioned like a slide from a large rock down into the water. But nobody wanted to go in. Would you? It was really intimidating, after paddling across croc habitat, through a couple of small rapids, to another waterhole, which was supposedly safe... I told Jeremy to go first... He said no way! So then I tried to convince Dylan to go... He wouldn't either! It looked as though we were going to spend the afternoon standing on the rocks, watching the river flow by. Then, Roddy jumped in. Straight in, feet first, and swam right out into the middle of the river. They do this all the time, and have absolutely no doubt there is no risk involved, but it's still a nerve racking experience. Jeremy followed, and me, and Dylan. Jo wasn't coming in, regardless of what we said or how much we tried to convince her. Mind you, we didn't waste any time getting out of the water either... We played some games on the rafts in the river, and wasted quite a bit of time mucking about, just us and our two guides. It was awesome fun! The guides were just like big kids, and got on with the two boys like they were all best friends. They were very impressed with the confidence our two boys had, and their ability to accept challenges and try things that made them uncomfortable. Before we knew it, it was 4 o'clock, and time to return. This time, we got to paddle down through the rapids, which was awesome. Dylan just sat in the floor of the raft and watched over the edge, as he was a bit cold from the swimming, and wary of the lake, but Jeremy, Jo and I all sat on the edge and paddled our hearts out, trying to get up speed so the rapids were faster. At one stage, Jo nearly got thrown out, which put our hearts in our mouths, but she stayed in, which was much safer, but much less entertaining... The return paddle across the lake was a calm, leisurely affair. We weren't so focused on the crocodile issue, but were just chatting with the guides and telling them what we're doing, and enjoying the scenery and the sunshine. Dylan had a paddle in the smaller raft with the other guide "Bill", and was really relaxed and comfortable with it, even though it was closer to the water, and much smaller. The boys swapped over, and Jeremy had a go in the smaller raft as well. He also wasn't concerned about being closer to the water. I think the time spent playing with the guides, and talking and getting to know them had built a level of trust between them, which gave the boys confidence that they were safe. They may not have been, but we made it back all in one piece, and had a fantastic time on the water. We regret that we were unable to take photos, but because it's an iPhone and the guides couldn't guarantee it would stay out of the water, we had to leave it behind. The afternoon flew by, and it was one of those moments where you're having heaps of fun, and you don't want it to end, but you're very glad and relieved when it does. It's a conflict of emotions, and it's almost like it's the risk in the situation, that creates the reward... As AJ Hacket said "You should do something every day that scares you. It reminds you you're alive." We felt alive today!!
Earlier this morning, we went to Tjapukai Cultural Park, which is an aboriginal interpretive centre. We watched some traditional dancing, had a go at spear throwing and boomerang throwing, and then a didgeridoo display. It was very good, but we'd already seen it all when we did 'Rainforestation' in Kuranda, and there was nothing that was different, just the venue. If you're ever up here, you don't need to do both. Tjapukai is the better 'indigenous' culture experience, and is in Cairns, and I'd recommend that.
The weather has continued it's run of nice, hot, sunny days, and the wind has dropped right down today, so tomorrow, we're headed to the outer reef for more snorkelling. It's an early start though, and a big day, but it's going to be great!
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Aunty Min Jeepers Jo, brave heart. Go you mad nuts. Shiver.