Barrington

Today was the first day of my 3 day 2 night trip up to Byron Bay. I had an earlish night and went to bed about 11 or so to get up at 5.30 in time to get myself sorted at get the Oz bus at 6.30. The Oz Experience office where I was being picked up was only across the road from my hostel so it was pretty convienient. Unknown to everyone waiting outside the office at 6.30 they had changed the bus time to 7.15 so we ended up hainging around for a while which was pretty annoying as I could have had an extra hour in bed. It gave everyone time to check in at the Oz desk and sort out their tickets anyway. When the bus pulled up I was pleased to see we were on one of the old Oz Expereince buses as they were more like coaches than buses and you had miles more space. Apparently all of the coaches are being sold off and replaced by buses like the one I had from Melbourne to Sydney. The Spanish guys and the Norweigen Girls were on the same bus again so at least there were some familiar faces though there were a host of new to meet and names to remember.

Before getting to Barrington we made a stop off to the McGuigan Winery to do some wine testing which was pretty kool. The set up was really nice and we tried about 8 different wines, which were a mixture of whites and reds. When then got back in the bus to make our way to Barrington Tops where we were staying at a place called The Steps.

The Steps was basically a bungalow and looked like a home inside. The bedroom had bukbeds in and there was a lounge with a tv and fire in. In the dining room area there was a pool table which I jumped on and had a few games though the cues were really bad. The Steps did night rafting which I opted to do and im really glad I did. This is apparently the only place in the world where you can go night rafting so I was really excited!! There was 10 of us going so we all went and got out wet suits, lifejackets, helmets, and head torches on. There were trainers there to use as it was a certainty you would get wet as the rafts let in water anyway as that was how theey were designed. These trainers were the mankiest things ever, they felt so disgusting to put your feet into as they were soaking wet and just generally scummy. The rafts were kool and it was one per person. They were similar to a kayak but they were just inflated rather than being hard plastic. Once everyone was set we got in the minibus and went down to the lake for a practice for 10 minutes to show we were capable of paddling around on our own, then it was off to the river with the rapids.

The river had 5 rapids that we were going over though the first didnt go to well as someone in front of me got stuck on the rapid and ploughed into them resulting in me capsizing and going for a little swim! I managed to get back in my raft with my paddle and carried on downstream. We all got to a calm stretch in the river and turned off our lights to to let our night vision set in and drift in darkness which was awesome. Then it was onto the rest of the rapids all of which I managed to conquor without going for a swim again. Going down the rapids and fighting your way though the rocks was such a good feeling it gave you a real rush. The last rapid was the best as it was the biggest and consisted on 4 seperate rapids which were all about 1 1/2 foot each but you had to make sure you got the righ path down otherwise you'd be in trouble as a couple of people found out!! Once we got back to the ranch it was straight to the shower for me before I started to smell like the river. We then had a BBQ for dinner which was pretty good.