Rafting on the Nymboida- January 17

Yesterday we finished the Waterfall Way drive and found ourselves in Coffs Harbour; a beautiful port city with gorgeous beaches. Conveniently there was a man renting surfboards right beside the beach so I took Dane out and taught him the little I’ve learned about surfing. He caught on straight away (as they say in Oz) and we spent several hours in the ocean, taking turns on the big board.
Last night there were wallabies in the field where we’d parked the car. About 30 of them hopped around eating grass and staring at us. We thought they were roos at first but learned they were their smaller relatives. Equally as cute and strange looking, they must have very supple spines to be constantly hunched over or hopping. I took some pictures of them and a woman came over and angrily informed me that “they’re wild animals, not pets.” Ok, thanks tips.
I woke up several times in the night and caught glimpses of them in the moonlight and a few were still around when we got up in the morning.
It was time to inject some adrenalin into our road trip, especially for Dane. He thrives on high-action activities and has never tried white water rafting. We’d heard good things about a company in Coffs Harbour called Liquid Assets Adventure Tours so we booked a tour on Saturday and set out early Sunday for a two-hour drive up into the mountainous rainforests surrounding the coast. The Nymboida is not easily accessed by road and when it rains, no one can get a raft down to the river. The road we took was bumpy and wound up and down through the trees until the river came into sight.
The tour turned out to be the best I’ve ever taken. I first rafted in Austria and later again in Thailand and while both were incredible, they could not compare to the scenery, companionship between the people on our boat and the rapids on the Nymboida River.
The rapids were a level three, quite high on the scale for how rapids are classified. Our guide, David, gave us an initial safety and paddling lesson and told us the river is very technical. That means we have to approach each rapid section just right or we’ll get stuck or worse in the rocks. Dane and I jumped in the key rowing positions, right at the front of the raft and were told we’d have to work as a team to set the rowing pace for the rest of the boat.
David was right about the river. He had a complex series of forwards and backwards paddling set up for each rapid section and often had one side of the boat jumping against the other. He obviously knows what he’s doing because our boat didn’t get stuck once in the rocks and although we ran into some very high cliffs at fast speeds, we laughed the whole time while we watched the other boats on the tour work their way out of awkward spots where they were hung up on rocks.
And along with all the great rafting, we got to jump off a ten foot cliff, float down the river on our backs, drink from fresh spring water streams and fall down waterfalls. The trip ended with a wonderful BBQ lunch where three huge goanna lizards prowled, looking for food and licking the coals of the fire with their long tongues.
David definitely made the tour. As well as being smart and calm (he has 23 years experience on three different continents) he knows a lot about the Nymboida and pointed out interesting erosion areas and wildlife along the way. He’s the operations manager for Liquid Assets and while older than the rest of the guides, he easily told stories from his youth and we discussed various topics pertaining to Australia’s culture during the downtimes on the river. Dane thought the rapids could have been bigger but thoroughly enjoyed himself.