Rotorua (again) - sledging and rafting.
Trip Start
Aug 31, 2005
1
53
60
Trip End
Feb 16, 2006
Rotorua,
New Zealand
Monday, January 23, 2006
The next day we went sledging and white water rafting. Sledging is basically where you hold onto a plastic thing (!) and go down the river (see photos to understand what I am going on about). We got out of the bus and were told we had to carry the sledges on our heads, I was pathetic so carried it with the guide! We then got to the river but to reach it you had to climb over a barrier and climb down, not fun! We then entered the water with our sledges (the water was not that cold) and learnt some basic rolls which I really struggled with! And then we were off. It was fantastic fun, helped by the fact that we had a good group of guides with us, and not scary. ALthough at one point we were playing in the rapids and when you were pushed out of the rapid you had to swim back up the river to avoid heading towards a huge waterfall, this was very difficult and the guides had to keep rescuing us!
After a quick toilet break (!) we were off white water rafting. We were on the same river but further up. It was very different to the other rafting we have done because the river was very calm except for the white water areas whereas before most of the river was bumpy and quite scary. At one point we were about to go down the biggest waterfall when the guide told Sim and I that we know what to expect as when sledging we had got in where the bottom of the waterfall was, we were not amused as we had seen kayaks coming down and thought they were mad. But it was cool fun, once we got to the bottom we were told that it was the guides first time taking people down the river!
All in all an excellent day. (Have to say these are not the most flattering photos, in fact one is the most unflattering ever).
After all that excitement we jumped into the car and headed to Raglan (managed to get an excellent tan line on my arm from wearing a t-shirt and having the window open) , where we stayed in a lovely hostel by the river. We were staying in a room called the penthouse (a twin room), basically it was a shed outside with the electricity coming through the window from the hostel. To go to the toilet in the night we had to enter the code to get into the hostel first!!!!
