Whale Tours - don't just take photographs... swim with the world's largest mammals
 

A Whale of A Time by Graham Holliday

Don't just take photographs... swim with the world's largest mammals

When it comes to encountering whales in the wild, most of us are content to glimpse them through binoculars on a whale-spotting cruise or from a vantage point onshore.

But more adventurous nature lovers are heading for the South Pacific kingdom of Tonga, where you can actually swim with some of the world's largest mammals.

Whaleswim Adventures, tel: (64-9) 372 7073, run six-, seven- and nine-day tours that feature opportunities to swim with humpback whales off the island of Vaka'eitu, near Vava'u in Tonga's north. To minimize environmental impact, each tour has a limit of 12 people, of whom only four (plus a qualified marine researcher-cum-guide) are allowed in the water at any one time.

Between July and October every year, humpbacks migrate from Antarctica to the 171-island archipelago to give birth and nurse their calves—and Whaleswim tours make straight for the nurseries. "It's a truly life-changing experience to watch a young, 12-m calf suckling its 40-m mother just meters away," says Rae Gill, Whaleswim's tour director. "The trust these wild animals have in us is humbling in itself. I know of no other wild animals that allow this." Tours start from $1,752.

(http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/0,13674,501041018,00.html)

Getting ready for a adrenaline rush ....close to the first rapid ..."Teaser" .Mostly the white-water rafting, tenderly begins in the gentle section of the river through a lush tropical rain forest. Then it gradually rolls over to hissing water as the river start to flaw faster until it meets the rapid that could send your adrenaline pumping up in your body. A normal one or two hour rafting trip may utterly include section from grade 1 to 4. White-water rafting mostly is organized around a river in the areas of plains along rivers to the hill country.

A breather at last ....the advendure ends at the Rafter's Retreat .

This adventure starts at Kitulgala where David Lean's Academy Award-winning 'Bridge on the River Kwai' was filmed and takes you rafting down a grade 3 river rapids of the kelani river.Although nothing remains now except the concrete foundations for the bridge (and, supposedly, the submerged train cars that plunged into the river in the climactic scene).

Beging of the 2 km river white water rafting adventure at Kityhulgala 

Incomming...moving towards the first rapid ..."Teaser" 

An exhilarating, grade 3 white water rafting trip down the Kelani River january 03 2005. 

Sri Lanka - Water, adventure, danger, adrenaline...For white-water rafting you must visit Kitagula. The adventure starts a few kilometres upstream.