Rapids Down Under

Australia makes me think of kangaroos, cricket and surfing, not really whitewater rafting. But racing through the river rapids of Australia seems like a thrilling adventure. Read more below from, Rafting the Nymboida River.

“On Saturday, Wildwater Adventures picked up our group of four at 7:30 a.m. at our hotel. We were all wishing for another 30 minutes of sleep, but we were totally excited to go rafting. After stopping to pick up a few more people, including our rafting guides for the day – Rocky and Rob – the bus made its way into the Binderay National Park.

It was going to be about an hour’s drive until we reached our raft launching site and a nap would have been nice, but the scenery was too good to pass up.

As we drove through the parks and along the insanely winding road, Rocky, who is a Coffs Harbour local, filled us up with tidbits of local history (“Coffs Harbour thrived on a timber-logging industry“) and knowledge of the flora and fauna (“Those are banana plantations, which have been around since the early 1900s“).

Once we arrived at the mighty Nymboida River, our guides offered us a spread of coffee, tea and hot cross buns before sitting us down for a safety talk. Then, we figured out how to fasten our life vests, launched our raft and got our first feel for the refreshing (read: cold) water temperature.

Our guide, Rob, explained what we should do when he yelled, “back paddle,” “front paddle” and “get down!“

The first rapid was great, a teaser. The four of us were able to paddle through it with no problems, yet it definitely got our heart racing and our hair wet.”

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