Jez's 25th on the Nile

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Day 265 (31/12/08) Jez's Birthday (aka New Years Eve)
Brimming with excitement we were up at 7am to a cloudless blue sky, to catch our transfer from the camp to the rafting spot for breaky and the days briefing. We were soon fitting up with helmets, life jackets and jumped on the back of the truck and down to the launching point of the White Nile.
We allocated ourselves into rafts Carly, Jez, Nathan, Tania, Mike from our truck and an enthusiastic American lady, we were assigned an instructor, Jane “one tough looking bitch”. Jane had over twenty years experience so we were in safe hands. After a quick practice of the strokes, how to flip and get in and out of the raft we were ready to tackle our first rapid. With the other rafts making it through safely and the nonrafting members of our truck looking on… the pressure was on. Amazingly despite entering the rapid side on we made it through safely. Only 9 more to go. Next one was looking big and unbeknown to us was the one.. THE SILVERBACK, a very impressive grade five rapid but Jane decided to keep that to herself until after. We made it through the first part of the rapid but before we knew it we tipped to the right (losing Jez and Mike), then to the left (losing a few more) and back to the right and over. Carly got a ride with one of the kayakers as the rest of the crew and boat had disappeared down river and out of sight. Once we had located all our crew and returned everyone back to the raft we set off again just a little shaky. In between the rapids we enjoyed a refreshing swim and took in the amazing scenery.
We calmly made it through the next few rapids, flipping on just one before reaching our final rapid. First we had to disembark our raft to to miss the unraftable Grade Six section of the rapid final rapid and carry the raft to the other side known as “the bad place". There are three ways to attempt the rapid,certain flip, certain make or fifty-fifty, we chose fifty-fifty. Entering the rapid we lost Jez and Veronica but kept the rest of the crew.. making a fifty-fifty result too. We finished just in time as it started pissing down rain, back in truck and back for camp. Where we enjoyed a fantastic complimentary BBQ and beers. We went back to the truck for a private OASIS party, some lethal punch and birthday cake. Then it was back to the bar to watch our days rafting of spills and thrills. After seeing in 2009 we headed to bed pissed and exhausted!

Day 266
Up at 9am as the tent began to reach sweltering temperatures. We recovered with a big fry up and headed down to the river for a swim and gossip reciting the events of the night before.
Given the best way to be a hangover was to start again we enjoyed a couple beers and steaks and chips on the house. We lost the afternoon talking and a hour attempting to send an email home without success. We left them at the bar and wandered down to beautiful Bujagali Falls (pic on Hairy Lemon Blog .. opps) to see the locals in full swing washing laundry, collection water and bathing. Back to the truck Carly back on cook group and with the Asian theme remaining popular Thai Green Curry was on the menu. Back to the bar for an after dinner mint in case we hadn’t had enough and fare welled one of crew before crashing.

Day 267
After a couple days grounded we were due for a massive DRIVE DAY leaving at 5.30am and arriving into Kamba camp at 6pm.

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Comments

[Jon]

Rafting sounds pretty awesome, i would love to go kayaking there...