Went rafting again today. This time on the Russell river (also grade 4) and with a different company.
On the way there, the guides showed us a few local sights. Like the sugar cane mill in Babinda - one of the largest in the area. Sugar cane here is used mainly for rum, by the way, and Babinda literally translates to "The wet place" as it has 9 m of annual rain (something that is normally measured in cm-s).
The first order of business after getting out of the car was to take a 50 minute hike to the river through thick jungle. And to make things fun, all of us had to either carry around a heavy backpack or huge foam slabs (2m long, 1 m wide, 20 cm thick in total as there were 3 slabs bunched together). I got the foam slabs - which were pretty fun to slug around through the thicket as the jungle path was fairly narrow, slippery and rocky and the slabs impaired visibility quite heavily in many cases.
We were given some information about the jungle too. For instance, they showed us the worlds most poisonous plant - if you touch its leaves, it stings like hell for 10 days. The sting then becomes temperature sensitive and will hurt for months every time you have a shower.
The other cool plant they warned us about was "Waitawhile" (as the locals call it), or Rattan for the rest of the world. Basically, a type of vine that has very sharp hooks on its strands that can easily inflict long cuts on the skin. The name "waitawhile" is for a reason, by the way - if you get caught on it, the best thing to do is to take a few steps back as it will just release you then :)
Once we got to the water, the guides started unpacking the rafts. The slabs I was carrying were meant as flooring, by the way. There were 6 of us - a couple from New Zealand, a heavily tattooed couple from Sweden, a young guy from Taiwan and me. As this time the company used two-person rafts, I got paired up with the taiwanese guy. He did not speak much.. nor understand too much english, I think. Nevertheless, we worked pretty well as a team.
Well, not really. Guides explained that the guy up front is the engine (just paddles forward) and guy in the back does the steering. He sat up front, me in the back, However, initially, he also tried steering - so we just went around in circles. Thankfully, that got cleared up pretty fast.
Nevertheless, steering got some getting used to - and we did quite a few 360 spins on the water even later on, both before and during the rapids.
The high point was a grade 4 rapid, where the guide showed us - "You go down between these two rocks. Go to the left and (a gesture implying decapitation)". Needless to say we went down the way we should not have.
Backwards.
We stayed in the boat. But that was pretty damn scary when I first realized we were going down the wrong path. But things did work out quite alright and in the end, we were the only boat from which noone had fallen out - the other two had a man overboard in another rapid that had a waterfall, whilst we both managed to stay in pretty well - although in quite a few places, that seemed to hinge on pure luck alone. The two person rafts really did not have anything to hold on to (like the ropes larger rafts had) so it was mostly just paddle and pray through the rapids.. well, except for the prayer part of course.
The guides later admitted that everything had gone pretty smoothly, compared to average. Guess it is normal that people do not quite learn how to steer the rafts with just 5 minutes of instruction :) Nevertheless, they were both quite surprised we werent thrown out when we went the wrong way and backwards in that one rapid. "Guess you guys had someone watching above your shoulder".
It was fun, but a bit less than the first time. The trip was also a lot shorter. I got back to Franks by 15.30 in the evening already.
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