Local tour companies around the Cairns and Port Douglas area offer everything from white water rafting to kayaking and paddle boarding, but if you want to be able to enjoy the river without learning how to paddle, then River Tubing might be for you.
what is river tubing?
River tubing involves free floating down river on an inner tube.
All you have to do is sit in your tube (which has mesh in the bottom so you don’t fall through) and go with the flow.
It might look a bit tame compared to rafting but it is fun and since
it’s pretty easy, it is ideal for families and people who want to
experience a river activity more gentle than white water rafting.
Foaming fury
Foaming Fury is a small and friendly local tour company.
We recently joined their River Tubing tour on the Mulgrave River in
the Goldsborough Valley, about 30 minutes drive south of Cairns.
It was the perfect day for messing about on the river – sunny weather and reasonably high water levels.
There were 10 of us on the tour including our two lively river
guides, Mikey and Max, who clearly love their jobs (and who wouldn’t?!).
The Tour
At
the start we had about a five-minute walk along a rocky riverbed to get
to the area where we launched ourselves into the river.
Pushing our tubes into the river we started on some very gentle
rapids and then drifted along while our guides talked us through some
basic tips and tried to get us wet by making us stand on our tubes!
Getting wet is obviously all a part of the trip and, lucky for us, on the day we went the water temperature was perfect.
Floating downstream we soon came to a bigger set of rapids where we spent most of the morning going up and down river.
The
guides pulled a rope across the river below the rapids so we could grab
hold of it, pull ourselves out and walk back up along the riverbank for
another go.
It was great fun trying out lots of different ways to ride the river.
It’s basically just like being in a waterpark but with much better scenery and no queues!
Secret Swim Hole
After about 5-6 runs, Mikey and Max showed us a secret little swim hole just nearby.
There is another creek that joins the river at this point with much
cooler water and if you follow it uphill for about 3-4 minutes you come
across a fantastic swim hole that clearly nobody else knows about.
We spent some time having a very refreshing swim, jumping in from the
rocks and trying to climb trees to swing from, before making our way
back to the main river. Then we jumped back in our tubes and drifted
down to the end of the tour.
This Foaming Fury river tubing tour is a great way to spend half a
day. It’s lots of fun and a wonderful way to enjoy the scenery around
Cairns.
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