The next morning, 7 of us were up (not so) bright and early for our last adventure activity in Oz - White Water Rafting! The famous Tully River in Cairns is known for being the best place to go rafting so I made sure I was insured up to Grade 4 before I left the UK as there was no way I was missing out!! As you can probably tell from our smiley faces, we had the BEST day! I'm one of those losers that loves team building activities so I loved the fact that we all had to work together and we didn't stop laughing the entire time! Because I was the smallest, I had to sit at the back with the instructor (what is it with me getting put with instructors ay?) so I didn't have to work as hard! Yayyyy for being 5"3!
The scenery was absolutely breathtaking and it honestly felt like we were in a dream. We couldn't believe how lucky we were to experience something so beautiful. When we were away from the rough water, we jumped off the raft and floated around in our life jackets. It was probably the most relaxed I've ever felt in my life. If there's one thing I've learnt about myself in Australia, it's that I really love the water.
We stopped at the halfway point for a BBQ lunch then continued on for another few hours to the end of the river. We were SO exhausted afterwards so I ended up sleeping the whole way home (and got caught on the sleep cam that entertained us on pretty much every coach journey since Day 1). I was my typical unprepared self and forgot to bring a spare change of dry clothes with me, hence the borrowed Superman tee from my superhero obsessed bus buddy. That evening, we all went out for dinner and said our last goodbyes to mark the final night of the trip. You'd think the last night would be the craziest but none of us were in the mood to drink so we ended up heading back to the hotel earlyish to pack. We did however make time for one last dance to Uptown Funk! We pretty much screamed the bar down when we heard the opening beat, jumped straight on the table and threw our hands in the air like we just didn't care. The looks we got from the other travellers - who were peacefully eating their dinner - were priceless!
Reality hit the following morning - I was officially going home. I spent my last few hours buying snacks from Woolworths and getting ice cream with some of the guys who weren't flying home until later that afternoon. It was really difficult saying goodbye to the Aussie guys I had met, as chances are I would never see them again. I may have shed a tear (or ten) in the taxi on the way to the airport after they waved me off. 3 planes, a 2 hour delay sat on the runway, 33 hours and plenty of Tim Tams later, I landed at Birmingham Airport.
As promised, below is a video made up of random clips that I recorded whilst I was in Australia. If you've been reading since Day 1 (thank you for sticking around - I know it's taken a while!) then you'll probably recognise a few of the things I've written about. I hope you all enjoyed hearing about my Contiki adventure and I'm sorry it's taken me over 6 months to finally finish it! Note to self: don't try and write a travel series when you've just started a new job! I'll be writing a review on Contiki within the next couple of weeks so keep an eye out for that if you're interested.
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