Whitewater Rafting Down Tully Gorge

The wet season is finally coming to an end, and with perfect timing too. My friends Ari, Linda and I decided to go whitewater rafting down the Tully River on Saturday. I woke up at the crack of dawn to catch my ride, and I got to see the sky change from night to day — and that was just the beginning to a magical day.

Dozens of people were heading out to the river, so we took a group bus a few hours south to the small town of Tully. The drive down was beautiful. To our left, we passed fields of sugarcane and banana tree plantations, and to our right, the rainforest-covered mountains filled the frames of the large bus windows.

When we arrived at our take-off destination, the guides wasted no time getting us geared up and into the rafts. The sun warmed our skin and the water was refreshing, a perfect combination for a day on the river. Our guide, Natoo, showed us the basic maneuvers we would be using on the river, then we were on our way.

As an inexperienced rafter, I was rather nervous about getting out on the river. I have always considered myself to be a thrill-seeker, but sometimes I find that my appetite for adventure overpowers my common sense and actually capabilities. Fortunately, that was not the case today. Our first set of rapids was a class 3 (on a scale of 1-6: 3 being moderately difficult, 4 being difficult, and so on), and we handled that well, though I did spend a fair amount of time clutching the rope handle as though my life depended on it. For those that don’t know me, I am a klutz, and I simply didn’t trust myself not to tumble out of the boat at the slightest patch of roughness.

Throughout the day, I noticed my confidence growing. I went from grabbing the rope during small bumpy patches to casually no-handing it on significant drops. The raft bent and folded around rocks, and I merely shifted my body weight to avoid slipping out — felt like a pro.

My friend Linda is a bit of a world traveler, and she has been rafting in four different countries. She claimed this was the most intense rapids course she has done. During an especially rough rapid, the raft was flooded and she was swept off the raft by the current as we plunged under. There were more than a few times where I would have tumbled out of the raft too had Natoo not been sitting right next to me blocking me in.

As frightening as the thought of being swept up by the current was, the rapids were stunning. The swirling turbulence of the water as it twisted around rocks and fell through the gorge. There were whitecaps around every bend, crystal clear waters and massive boulders that my professor (Sweet Pete) would definitely have attributed to the river’s velocity and erosion processes (when you know you know).

Other than the magnificent tumbling waters and boulders painted into the scene, the walls of the gorge were something of their own to marvel at. The steep banks formed straight cliffs on the left side of the gorge. Trees clung to the rock face with exposed roots and managed to hold on.

Natoo pointed out a sleek looking rock wall with a tall waterfall cascading down its side. He explained how this rockface was formed by a lava stream and that there used to be a lava fall where the waterfall is now.  There were multiple waterfalls of all sizes along the gorge banks, some reaching up to several stories high.

We stopped for lunch with a view of one of the smaller waterfalls. They provided a very filling barbecue lunch, and we even had some unexpected guests: brush turkeys. These turkeys are much smaller than the ones back home in Wisconsin, and they have a colorful red and yellow head. Their tail feathers are also stacked vertically rather than fanning out horizontally, this really changes the appearance more than you’d expect.

These little guys were rather confident in their stealth skills. I saw one sneak up behind a man sitting on a bench and steal some bread off his plate right from under his arm. There must have been a dozen of them, they were everywhere I looked just casually walking around the crowd like the rest of us.

After our short lunch break, we headed off to the rafts and took off down the next set of rapids. This section of the river mainly consisted of class 3 & 4 rapids. Natoo explained to us that the World Rafting Championship would be held on this very section of the river in just a few weeks time.

The World Rafting Championship has been named “Tame the Tully.” Natoo will be competing with the Costa Rica team, since he is from there, and will be a valuable asset for them since he knows the river well. I thought it was pretty cool that we got to raft down the same river as the world champions with one of the competitors.

As promised earlier, Natoo stopped our raft on a big boulder, and we made our way up to the top. The boulder was around 4 or 5 meters high, and we weren’t wasting any time with our jumps.

When it was my turn, I got my footing and leaped before I could change my mind. The fall was long enough for me to think: don’t scream, don’t scream, don’t scream, before letting out a small yelp and plunging into the water.

Our last set of rapids was the longest yet. Most had been fairly short only taking about a minute or less to get through, but this one was the best. It felt like it was never-ending. Our raft would crash into a rock and do a full spin sending us backwards down the rapids.

Occasionally, the raft would get lodged in such a way that left us hanging in the rapids, water rushing all around us, unable to free ourselves from the rock. We bounced in the raft to try and get it to budge. When Natoo told us to get down, we all jumped from the edge of the raft to the middle and held on tight. Water crashed into the raft, flooding it completely. My feet were swept out from under me a few times, and once I ended up halfway out of the raft.

When our trip was done, we loaded the trucks and checked out our cuts and bruises — new ones seemed to appear continuously on our bodies throughout the ride home. We wore our battle wounds proudly. Today, as I’m writing this, I haven’t moved at all. My arms and shoulders are beyond stiff and my legs are burned out from bracing against the waves. I’m lucky I can even move my fingers, but it was totally worth it.