Emily's Jungle Tour & Chris' White Water Rafting

The jungle tour kind of got off to a rough start. When we met up at 7:30 Sunday morning I was not on the reservation list. So we ended up calling the reservations people and getting that all sorted out, so I was able to go on the tour. It was a very long day. First we went to this wildlife sanctuary place and looked around at all the animals. It was very similar to the Rainforestation from Saturday so it wasn't too exciting, but I did get to see my first cassowary. We were told to meet back at the bus at exactly 10:20 and anyone who was late had to eat vegemite. I am so glad I made it back in time because when I tried vegemite before I practically threw up.

After punishing the latecomers we drove over to Mossman Gorge where we walked through the rainforest and learned about some of the plants and animals. Before we left the gorge we went for a swim in the river which was pretty awesome (except for the part where we had to sit in wet bathing suits all day). Next was lunch followed by a cruise on the Daintree River where we saw a couple of crocodiles on the banks.

 After the cruise we took a ferry across the river to go to Cape Tribulation where we chilled on a beautiful tropical beach and I took my first steps into the Pacific Ocean. Along the way I actually got to see a cassowary in the wild, which is pretty rare since they are endangered. We had about a two hour drive back to Cairns and were late to dinner with the rest of the Australearn people, but we managed to make it before everyone ordered. By the time we got back to the resort I was so ready for bed.

Chris' turn:

First thing I want to say is that vegemite really is the worst thing I've ever had, like seriously I've heard people
say how terrible it is, but they didn't do it justice. It was kinda like a skunk ate a day's worth of soy sauce then crapped in a bucket of molasses. Yea, that disgusting. Anyways.....

My "day of adventure" didn't actually start until 2 so I kinda had an afternoon of adventure. So until then I was just going to hang around the resort for awhile and draw or something (kinda wish I bought a book to read), but then a bunch of people were  going to go to the beach around 10 so I went with them. The Australearn guys said that there really wasn't much of a beach and that it was just crap, but there was this lagoon thing at the end of the coast. So we walked there, which only took like 10 minutes or so. And when they said it was crap they weren't kidding. By the time we got to the beach it was low tide, and as far as you could see was just mud, mud as far as the eye can see it was kinda awful.

The boulevard was really nice though: green grass crazy looking trees, a skate park, a weird shell statue, a playground, and a weird fish and cake shop. Yea, you heard me, a fish and cake shop; they sold fish....and cake. Also some burgers and other things, but mostly fish and cake. So we got some lunch there and continued along the boulevard. Eventually we got to the lagoon, and what was there was amazing. When I first heard of it, I was expecting like an actually lagoon, with the ocean and all that, but it was this giant pool. Like you could walk right into it just like a beach; it even had white sand. It was pretty awesome.

But we didn't go to the lagoon right away, first we went into town cause some people needed to go to global Gossip (the place that we get our phones here from). So they go there, and some of us walked around town a little. We ended up in an aborigine store that sold authentic (so they say) boomerangs, didgeridoos and other stuff. I bought a boomerang and we met this girl who was being followed around by a camera guy. Apparently she was filming an episode of MTV's Made. For those who don't know, it's a show where they track and help this person become a different person...like they'll have some cowgirl who wants to be an iceskater so they follow her journey to achieve that. I don't remeber what her episode was called but i might be in a passing shot in that episode.

Ok Emily's yelling at me for not getting on to the raft part, so here it is:
After the boomerang getting, I ended up skipping the lagoon since I had to be back to the resort by 2. There ended up only being five of us going (me being the only guy), but we were joined by these brother and sister from Canada, since there had to be 7 people per raft. The river was pretty tame, some pretty strong rapids, but nothing too serious, but there were TONS of rocks, like we had to dodge them left and right. after the rapids we end up in a calm spot for a while and we got to jump out of the raft and swim around before the next wave of rapids.

We were joined on the river by a British rugby team that afternoon so we had like 5 rafts of jacked guys with british accents yelling at us to race or splashing us with their paddles. Our rafting guide thought it would be fun to try to hook up the girls on our raft with the rugby guys in the manner she seemed best, asking them: "Who wants to get my friends here pregnant?" really classy.

But overall rafting was awesome and we went to this brewery for some snacks and to see the pictures they took during the trip. All the pictures I had my head down, as they took to the pictures during the crazy rapids, so I didn't get any....sorry mom no pictures for you. But they gave us the most delicious potato wedges I have ever had, like I don't think even vegemite could ruin them....ok that was a lie, vegemite can probably ruin any food you put it on. But that was my day and stuff.....Emily doesn't like my ending but who cares what she thinks.