White Water Rafting!!!

Tara finally let me blog! (by the way, me=Dave for anyone who hasn't discovered that whole figuring things out by the process of elimination thing) Sure, a blog about white water rafting isn't as prestigious as one about, say, Hong Kong, but it's a start. Anyways...


Tara and I went white water rafting a few days ago with a bunch of friends from church. Yes, we had only been back from Queenstown for a couple of days before doing this, but we decided to use the George Bush tax refund thing to fund this little adventure. I know we were probably supposed to spend it in the States to help the economy and all. We didn't. So, about the rafting. We went rafting on the Wairoa river with the company River Rats. Usually the river is quite docile and boring, but 26 days in the year they open up the dams and the river gets really high and crazy resulting in heaps of rapids and small water falls. Rapids and falls are rated by grades. The small ripples are grade one and the biggest ones that we went over were grade five.


We arrived at that company headquarters (a tin shack with equipment in it) and got fitted with our gear, which included water proof clothes, life jackets, and helmets. We all loaded into a bus and were driven to the starting point with our boats. There were ten of us from church, so we split up into two boats with five people per boat, plus a guide in each boat. In our boat, the guide was up front with Tara in the middle and me in the back with other people around us. When I got in the back, our guide gave me a look like I was probably going to die riding in the back. The first ten or so minutes were spent in an area of slow moving water practicing maneuvers with our guide. I can't remember his name, so I'll just call him Frank. After Frank was happy with our skills we headed down the river with our friends in the other boat following close behind. Yes, it's finally picture time. Can't you guys read anything without pictures? What are you, eight?


Just to get things started, this is what our faces looked like most of the time.



Yes, that's me smiling and Tara just hoping to live another day.



Many of the extreme rapids had clever names such as 'The Devil's Elbow' and 'Mother's Nightmare'. Very comforting.


Mother's nightmare was one of the first ones we went over. This is what it looked like. Just to recap, that's me in the back and Tara is right in front of me.











Pretty intense, but nothing we couldn't handle.



Next up, Frank told us to get ready for Double Trouble. He told us something about it being called double trouble because if you mess up early on the rapid you will be in trouble at the end. We were in trouble at the end. And I still feel like it's my fault. Before Double Trouble, there was a calm area where we stopped the boat and were briefed about what we would have to do and where to row and when to get down, etc. After this, Frank came to the back of the boat, sat really close to me, and said "I am really counting on you. When I say 'row', I need you to paddle as hard as you can so we can get the tail of the boat around". No problem. Let's do this thing.




Looking good.
Still good.


Now for a little conversation:


Frank: "Dave, what are you doing sitting down in the boat! I am counting on you to keep the boat on course!"






Dave: "Ummm, I kind of lost my paddle into the frothy rapids of death"


Frank: "This is not going to be good"




Yes, that is us going down the falls backwards.





Oops.


Oh, and this was Tara's face the entire time.


Well, it wasn't pretty but we made it and I got my paddle back a little ways downstream.

Last on the agenda, The Devil's Elbow. Just to refresh your memories, the devil is quite sinister, as is this terrifying grade 5 falls.
You call this the Devil's Elbow? More like Cinderella's elbow!



This is more like it. This is awesome!
Oh. Crap.

Tara, are you ready for this?I will take that as a yes.

AHHH!!!!Notice Tara's face. Priceless.

Dave: "Frank! I'm slipping!! I am getting destroyed back here!"

Frank: "Why did you sit in the back?!?!?"

Dave: "You made me!! No worries though, I am just going to head butt this cliff."

Tara: "Ummm, Dave? You alive?"

???

Victory!!!
What a blast!
Here a few more random action photos for you to mull over while you wait for the adrenaline to wear off...

Near the end of our two hour adventure, Frank asked us if we wanted to get out of the boat and go down the last rapids with just our bodies. We all said yes. It was about 100 meters of rushing rapids that we all went shooting down. Tara got somewhat frightened (seems odd since she was so willing to jump out of an airplane) but I was there to save her. Breathing was a little difficult and the rapids were pretty wild but we survived.

Finally we were back on land. Cold, wet and tired, but in one piece. The bus took us back to headquarters where we all had sandwiches and swapped stories. Quite an adventure.