Today I went...White water Rafting! I absolutely loved it - I think I'm hooked on rafting. Because of the general overflow of Americans here they were all in groups so I got put in a group of 6 CHinese people which I was a lottle bit annoyed about until the guide, Chris aka Kiwi, came up to me, told me not to worry, that I could sit up the back near him where you get bounced loads and we would generally take the mickey out of the Chinese. The Australians love their un-PC humour but the Chinese generally didn't get it. Nor could some of them swim which was interesting, especially when he made us jump out the raft to practice how to lie in the water!

The day started at 6.40am and we got to the river around 9am. After fitting life jackets and helmets we were off. I was sitting right at the back next to Kiwi and it was true what he said! You have to hold on differently at the back and you literally fly around! I'm covered in bruises now but it was worth it. I didn't fall in but once I went flying out the boat, managed to hold on and flung back in before landing in a heap at poor Kiwi's feet!

It was grade 3 and 4 rapids (the highest is 6) so it wasn't too bad but you got soaking - this was no Disneyworld ride! At one of the rapids he said, if everyone wanted, we could get flung out the boat. So I convinced the Chinese this was what they wanted. That was fun - he told us to swim to the right and they all floated so far downstream I had to swim down to meet them. Then after lunch (a barbecue in which one of the guides got mayo, ketchup and mustard thrown all over him as it was his 40th) we could do a rock jump off a 5m rock (half the Chinese were too scared to do this). It was quite funny because at certain points you have to stand and do safety for the other rafts and he would let me have a swim in the river but they weren't allowed! It was beautiful while we were rafting - it went through World Heritage Rainforest and there were loads of Cormorants, blue butterflys, huge dragonflies. Unsurprisingly, despite liberal coatings of suntan lotion I have got burnt which goes nicely with the bruise right down my forearm.

The benefit of being with Chinese is they love photo's so we clubbed together to get the cd - one of them will email me the photographs when they go home to Brisbane where they are studying.

I am now completely exhausted and have to be at the bus stop at 7am tomorrow to head to Magnetic Island - the place in the photograph. I have three nights here and I will be there on Friday for the Full Moon Party - all night party on the beach!

Oh and Mum, the weather is boiling! It's very humid and it seems to rain at night which is good. It's in the tropics up here so they get a lot of rain. Where I went rafting gets around 5-6m every year and one year got 8.5m! Its all rainforest habitat. Luckily my hostel here had air con!