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Three days after we arrived in New Zealand we decided to do the most scary, yet thrilling thing I could think of, white water rafting. As soon as we booked it we felt nervous, but there was no time to get anxious, as twenty minutes later we were picked from our hostel and were on our way.
I did try to feel more positive as we all chatted in the battered old mini bus, but this was short lived after a we were given a disclaimer to sign. This
didn' t fill me with confidence, but only added to my apprehension, however, Ronnie was bouncing around with excitement, like a teenager, clearly no hint of nerves there.
On arrival we were greeted by a group of athletic looking youngsters dressed in wetsuits and raring to go. At this point I knew we were in the wrong place, we didn't even look the part, but it was too late, in an instance wetsuits were thrust into our hands, still cold and wet from the last occupants. After much wrestling and grunting, trying to slide into something that felt at least two sizes too small, Ronnie came to the rescue and literally shoved me into the wetsuit, in a manner similar to shoving a pillow into a pillowcase, me being the pillow of course! We eventually emerged from the changing rooms feeling exhausted, yet rather triumphant in our new look.
We were immediately directed to our rafts and allocated our places, Ronnie and I were placed at the front, which I wasn't too sure about, but we had no choice, it was all about weight distribution. However, given that there were five people sat behind us, I wondered if we were considered the heavy ballast at the front that kept the nose of the raft in the water? There was no time to worry about it, as we were straight into the brief, but essential instructions required for the journey and in no time, we were off.
We started with some small rapids, which were fun, as the water was relatively shallow, but we were soon hurtling down the river, one moment paddling as hard as we could, the next we were holding on to the raft to avoid being thrown overboard. It was so exhillerating and the instructors were full of confidence, which helped quash any sign of nerves.
The experience included shallow easy rapids to fast flowing rapids that were impossible to steer through. We even steered straight into them, which had the same effect as putting your finger over a hose pipe, the water shot out in all sorts of directions and totally soaked us, but it was a warm day and with the correct clothing on it was incredible fun.
The highlight of the day was at the end of the course, where we were given the option to go over a waterfall. At this point we could get out and walk around it, but the competative streak in us both was not going to let that happen. So we sat through the next set of instructions on how to deal with the situation should we capsize. I'm not sure if it was fear or excitement at this stage, but there was no turning back, we were off!
It all happened so quickly and was so disorientating, I remember seeing a beautiful view ahead of us, then we tipped over the fall. We both focused on remembering the instructions - hold on tightly to the raft and whatever happens, don't let go!
We very quickly emerged, wet, yet upright with everyone still in their place, it was amazing, I couldn't quite believe what we'd just done.
As the first raft over we had the pleasure of admiring our beautiful surroundings, which we hadn't been able to fully appreciate until now, as we'd been so preoccupied with the fast flowing river. Two other rafts tried their luck going over the waterfall. The last one, I am pleased to say, failed misserably, they capsized and were thrown around the bottom of the waterfall in the same verocius way bowling pins are scattered with a bowling ball. Other than a few grazes nobody was injured, everyone was still very elated by the whole experience.
We both agreed it was going to be hard to top this adrenalin fuelled experience during our adventures, for me personally, it had certainly raised the bar!
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