extreme sports!

The weather has set in at Queenstown. Spring has sprung, which means cold, wet and cloudy with the occasional earth tremor (a new one for us!) 3 last night and 1 this morning!

We've just got back from Lake Wanaka (pronounced Wanaka), about 100km from Queenstown over the Crown range. Emma and I spent a couple of nights in a spa hotel, we hired some bikes and took on some of NZ's best downhill mountain bike trails at 'the plantation'. We ironed out the creases afterwards at the hotel with a spa and some excellent food and wine!!
(Nick)

The day we got back from Wanaka I was finally convinced to go white-water rafting by Nick and Dean (Manda's ex-boyfriend and raft-guide). To say that I was 'apprehensive' would be the understatement of the year! So Manda drove us to the raft site where we met Dean. We then went through a really thorough safety talk and got into a wetsuit, over jacket, life jacket and helmet (a fashionable combination)

The drive up Skippers Canyon in the mini bus (towing a trailer full of rafts) was heart-stopping. It is the only public highway in NZ that rental companies will not allow you to take their cars. The sheer drop off the road averaged about 100 meters. The 'road' was built over 100 years ago by the gold miners, and has been reconstructed from cow poo and river stones (great!!) and it was narrow, very narrow.

So, on the terrifying journey up we were reminded by the guides that the company take no responsibility for our safety, and that the Shot-over Canyon is the 2nd fastest river in NZ, and finally that rafting is considered a dangerous activity and there have been fatalities on the Shot-over in the past. Great.

As my only 2 options at this point were a) get in the raft or b) face the journey back in the mini-bus....... I thought I'd go for broke!

After more safety talks from Dean, we finally got in the water.

It was EXTREMELY cold.

The first small rapids were fine, we were taught some commands, such as:

'hold on' (which was not as easy as it sounds when you're wearing 18 layers and holding a huge paddle with freezing hands! )

and my favorite... 'jump in' which involved sliding off the side of the raft (where I had been balanced) into the middle and wedging myself in between the other rafters!! NOT jumping into the freezing, roaring white-water!

Things got a bit tricky when we reached the grade 4 rapid known as 'Mother'. (Rapids are graded 1-6, and if you are alive at the end, it was maximum 5)

We headed for a steep drop, which had at the bottom a wall off water. As the front of the raft ploughed into the rapids the water was waist deep and I couldn't see my feet. I could hear Dean, at the back, shouting 'paddle forwards if you can'.

I think my heart stopped when the water hit my face.

Luckily, 'Mother' was followed by 3 other similar rapids all within 2 minutes. After the initial shock of the freezing water and sheer terror of being fired at the canyon walls in a small rubber boat by very fast water.... it all went well.

I did really enjoy some parts of it, but I don't really enjoy being so scared that I thoguht I was going to pass out... so I'd recommend it, but I wouldn't do it again!!!