07/11: Rotorua River Rafting
We bolted out of Auckland only after hitting a super market to stock up on food. We headed south, deciding that Rotorua would be a good first stop, being the north island hub for cultural and adventure sport touro activities. We pulled into the tourist information center and got way too much information...mom took about 20 pamphlets and brochures, one for every possible activity in the area, or so it seemed to me. It was raining off and on, as it does in NZ, and so i suggested that we do some river rafting. They have an amazing river rafting deal that is just $89 for an hour of river rafting, but what it lacks in time, it makes up for in character. The experience is all about some solid rapids and apparently we had signed up to drift over the tallest commercially river rafted waterfall IN THE WORLD. Yes, i said waterfall. Now i don't know where the cutoff is, when does a rapid become a waterfall?, but at a height of 7 meters (23 feet for you standard folks) apparently a rapid has become a waterfall. And now we're talkin' about my kind of river raftin'.
We signed up to have them pick us up the next morning at our caravan park and they were there, right on time, and we were late, but by just a few minutes and no one was in a hurry. In our van were 2 young fellas from the UK and we immediately started quizing each other on who had done what in the area and how good was it. These fellas had stories about mountain biking, skydiving, blackwater rafting and caving, and well we had stories about the airport...but it sounded like we were in with the right sort of crowd.
We got 45 minutes out of town and finally made it to the rafting center. They took our money, had us sign our lives over to some contract, and gave us the required gear which consisted of a tanktopped wetsuit, booties, fleece, waterproof jacket, life vest, and helmet. 2 more joined our group, a nice couple from Australia who were quiet but seemed excited enough. We jumped in the raft right there in the gravel driveway and got our first lesson in rafting. P-nut, our joking and laughing kiwi guide was quick to inform us that if we couldn't get our act together here on the gravel, he certainly wasn't going to take us out on the river and make him WORK for a living, oh no, we were going to pull our own weight on this adventure. And we had our stuff together pretty quick, even for a bunch of first timers. So we hefted the raft between the 6 of us and strode on down through the sheep fields to the river's edge with P-nut, a kayaking safety man, and a kayaking photographer.
The water was cold, but not that cold, the wetsuits were thick and the adrenaline was pumping. We launched from the river's edge and did some practice manuevers in the river before P-nut let us head down stream, again he stressed the fact that he was NOT going to be left doing all the work here to keep us upright and heading downriver in the right direction. After a few minutes we had our act together and were heading for our first rapids.
P-nut informed us that the experience was basically made up of 4 rapids. 2 at the top, one right after the other, a 1.5m rapid followed by a 2 meter rapid, then another reasonable sized rapid of about 3m and then he stressed that we would be doing a 7 meter rapid last. He loved to stress the 7 meter rapid, largest in the world, now that we were on the river and there was NO turning back. Mom and the aussie woman onboard were in the front, being the lightest, and definitely wore no masks hiding their concern for what we about to undertake, they looked down right worried, and for a few moments i was actually concerned, but then i got over it as i knew they would too.
P-nut was great, and i was most impressed with his ability to manuevre the raft into spaces in the river where we could just sit. This swift moving river had so many holes where he could get us to just sit and talk us through what we were about to encounter. Just 10 meters from a rushing waterfall and we were just casually hanging in our raft until he comandeered us to paddle like hell straight for it.
The first 2 falls were successive and he drove us right over both of them without stopping. We were stoked. Alive and kicking and so excited to be still upright. We kept on down the river, P-nut was pointing out the native vegetation, and we did a couple small rapid sections. Then the 3rd rapid approached and he set us up, but it was only the 3 meter rapid and we were solid and full of confidence so we flew it steady, no worries.
He stopped us in a really cool cove with super high vertical flora covered walls, green as can be imagined, a light rain falling and he told us the story of the native king who is buried under the big falls. Cool story, but i recon it is all constructed to make the experience more thrilling and drag out the time a little bit. But it was fun nonetheless to sit in this swirling green cove and imagine the Maori hiding their women and children in the caves around this cove as they went to war with local enemy tribes.
It had finally come time to drop the big one. P-nut pulled us over to a Silver Fern, which is very green on the top side and a muted green-silver color on the underside. He tore a short end-section from one of the sword-shaped fronds and handed it to me. He told me to throw the leaf over my left shoulder into the water to predict our fate. Green side up we're gonna be good, silver side up, then we are gonna get wet, real wet. Well, it came down silver side up and everyone was ready to blame me for the fate that i had thrown. But let fate be fate, i was determined to do what i could to keep this raft right side up. It turned out in the end that i was actually able to do very little to make it go either way. It was going to be up to the Maori King buried in the depths below the falls.
We raised our oars to the sky and gave a big hoot before P-nut sent us down river. We all paddled hard straight at the falls until P-nut shouted "get down", our signal to set our oars to the outside, grabbing the outside handle with our oarhand while hitting the deck of the raft with our bums and grabbing the handle on the floor with our inside hand, shoving our feet under the seat in front of us for leverage to stay IN the boat. And over we went. All that was green turned white and wet as we went nose first over the falls, flying into a frothing oblivion.
Smooth as silk, with literally no control of our own, we flew over the falls and dunked at the bottom coming out heads up. We did it!!! A big hoot from all of us and oars in the air we applauded ourselves on a job well done, though none of us was really sure what we had really just done. We stopped and admired the huge falls we had just flew over and under before continuing on down the river.
My first ever river rafting experience and i thought it was just perfectly my style, short, sweet, and intense. Mom loved it too.
When we arrived back at the caravan park, we ducked into the front office to ask a few questions about which Maori cultural experience we should buy into since there were about 10 to choose from. Mom was chatting up the receptionist and i picked up a local newspaper. Right there on the front cover of the paper was a story about a 66 year old Indian man on holiday who died river rafting just the day before, on the same river, over the same falls that we had just conquered. Apparently, when his team went over the falls the Maori chief flipped their boat and the poor fella had a heart attack in the water. I showed the article to mom and had her read it, thankful that we hadn't gotten down to the office early that morning to have seen the article before we left...classic. Timing is everything.
We signed up to have them pick us up the next morning at our caravan park and they were there, right on time, and we were late, but by just a few minutes and no one was in a hurry. In our van were 2 young fellas from the UK and we immediately started quizing each other on who had done what in the area and how good was it. These fellas had stories about mountain biking, skydiving, blackwater rafting and caving, and well we had stories about the airport...but it sounded like we were in with the right sort of crowd.
We got 45 minutes out of town and finally made it to the rafting center. They took our money, had us sign our lives over to some contract, and gave us the required gear which consisted of a tanktopped wetsuit, booties, fleece, waterproof jacket, life vest, and helmet. 2 more joined our group, a nice couple from Australia who were quiet but seemed excited enough. We jumped in the raft right there in the gravel driveway and got our first lesson in rafting. P-nut, our joking and laughing kiwi guide was quick to inform us that if we couldn't get our act together here on the gravel, he certainly wasn't going to take us out on the river and make him WORK for a living, oh no, we were going to pull our own weight on this adventure. And we had our stuff together pretty quick, even for a bunch of first timers. So we hefted the raft between the 6 of us and strode on down through the sheep fields to the river's edge with P-nut, a kayaking safety man, and a kayaking photographer.
The water was cold, but not that cold, the wetsuits were thick and the adrenaline was pumping. We launched from the river's edge and did some practice manuevers in the river before P-nut let us head down stream, again he stressed the fact that he was NOT going to be left doing all the work here to keep us upright and heading downriver in the right direction. After a few minutes we had our act together and were heading for our first rapids.
P-nut informed us that the experience was basically made up of 4 rapids. 2 at the top, one right after the other, a 1.5m rapid followed by a 2 meter rapid, then another reasonable sized rapid of about 3m and then he stressed that we would be doing a 7 meter rapid last. He loved to stress the 7 meter rapid, largest in the world, now that we were on the river and there was NO turning back. Mom and the aussie woman onboard were in the front, being the lightest, and definitely wore no masks hiding their concern for what we about to undertake, they looked down right worried, and for a few moments i was actually concerned, but then i got over it as i knew they would too.
P-nut was great, and i was most impressed with his ability to manuevre the raft into spaces in the river where we could just sit. This swift moving river had so many holes where he could get us to just sit and talk us through what we were about to encounter. Just 10 meters from a rushing waterfall and we were just casually hanging in our raft until he comandeered us to paddle like hell straight for it.
The first 2 falls were successive and he drove us right over both of them without stopping. We were stoked. Alive and kicking and so excited to be still upright. We kept on down the river, P-nut was pointing out the native vegetation, and we did a couple small rapid sections. Then the 3rd rapid approached and he set us up, but it was only the 3 meter rapid and we were solid and full of confidence so we flew it steady, no worries.
He stopped us in a really cool cove with super high vertical flora covered walls, green as can be imagined, a light rain falling and he told us the story of the native king who is buried under the big falls. Cool story, but i recon it is all constructed to make the experience more thrilling and drag out the time a little bit. But it was fun nonetheless to sit in this swirling green cove and imagine the Maori hiding their women and children in the caves around this cove as they went to war with local enemy tribes.
It had finally come time to drop the big one. P-nut pulled us over to a Silver Fern, which is very green on the top side and a muted green-silver color on the underside. He tore a short end-section from one of the sword-shaped fronds and handed it to me. He told me to throw the leaf over my left shoulder into the water to predict our fate. Green side up we're gonna be good, silver side up, then we are gonna get wet, real wet. Well, it came down silver side up and everyone was ready to blame me for the fate that i had thrown. But let fate be fate, i was determined to do what i could to keep this raft right side up. It turned out in the end that i was actually able to do very little to make it go either way. It was going to be up to the Maori King buried in the depths below the falls.
We raised our oars to the sky and gave a big hoot before P-nut sent us down river. We all paddled hard straight at the falls until P-nut shouted "get down", our signal to set our oars to the outside, grabbing the outside handle with our oarhand while hitting the deck of the raft with our bums and grabbing the handle on the floor with our inside hand, shoving our feet under the seat in front of us for leverage to stay IN the boat. And over we went. All that was green turned white and wet as we went nose first over the falls, flying into a frothing oblivion.
Smooth as silk, with literally no control of our own, we flew over the falls and dunked at the bottom coming out heads up. We did it!!! A big hoot from all of us and oars in the air we applauded ourselves on a job well done, though none of us was really sure what we had really just done. We stopped and admired the huge falls we had just flew over and under before continuing on down the river.
My first ever river rafting experience and i thought it was just perfectly my style, short, sweet, and intense. Mom loved it too.
When we arrived back at the caravan park, we ducked into the front office to ask a few questions about which Maori cultural experience we should buy into since there were about 10 to choose from. Mom was chatting up the receptionist and i picked up a local newspaper. Right there on the front cover of the paper was a story about a 66 year old Indian man on holiday who died river rafting just the day before, on the same river, over the same falls that we had just conquered. Apparently, when his team went over the falls the Maori chief flipped their boat and the poor fella had a heart attack in the water. I showed the article to mom and had her read it, thankful that we hadn't gotten down to the office early that morning to have seen the article before we left...classic. Timing is everything.
