Ready for a day on the river, we enjoyed an entertaining orientation briefing and then kitted up in wetsuit, helmets and life jackets and got on the proverbial yellow school bus to take us down to the river. Here we met our guide Shane and set off in our sporty 7 man white water raft. There was an option for a 12 man raft which is much more stable in the water, but the team I was with wanted to get wet! So it was just the 4 of us and our guide – I knew that I was in for a wild ride and what a time we had!
The first rapid was a grade 4 – quite a biggie, but we managed to negotiate it intact, although we hit some pretty big waves and got flung all over the raft. It was a wild ride. At the bottom of the rapid, everyone regroups with all the other rafts and then it’s time to go surfing. Approaching the rapid from the bottom, you edge into the white water sideways and then try and surf the waves. Well, our first attempt flipped the boat and everyone including Shane ended up in the water – well Felix managed to stay in, but he was the only one! Our second attempt was really successful and we had a great time surfing – it looks really cool on the trip dvd that we purchased.
Surviving this experience, I lost all fear and really enjoyed the rest of the day. We were on the river for about 5 hours, paddling through stretches on flat water and riding down 7 more rapids with death defying names such as Push Button, Hare , Farmer’s Block and Butcher’s Knife.
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