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Published: October 30th 2006
And so to Rotorua....yikes....what a smell....of bad eggs crossed with rotting dogfood, indescribable. And the worst thing is, it's not constant...it comes in waves and wafts so that just when you think you can breathe through your nose BAM it knocks you out again! However, with all the activities here, you just get on with it.
So of course, as soon as our hostel is arranged, out we go to OffRoad NZ, where we were strapped into sprint cars fitted with roll cages and racing belt harnesses, and Thomas drove us everywhere but on the track as we slipped, and slid to a best lap time of 14.43seconds (for which, although only 3.5seconds off the lap record, we were duly ridiculed!).
Next day we were booked in for a full day on the Grade 5 Kaituna river - rafting in the morning, powering through 14 rapids including the 7m Tutea Falls, the highest commercially raftable falls in the world, and sledging in the afternoon, which involves you, a wetsuit, some fins, and a board to hold while floating in the river - all in the hands of our Kaitiaki (Maori for Guardians) guides who themselves have represented NZ at
the world championships in 2003 so we felt quite safe!.....NOT!
It was an awesome day. The rafting was first and it wasn't long before we had some casualties. One of the English boys fell out at the Tutea falls, and there's a great picture below of just his legs in the air as we surfaced from the water after being fully submerged. Later, we flipped on another set of falls, with our guide blaming the other boat of course!, and we were all waterborne. I was lucky to hold on to the boat, so rescue wasn't too far away, but Thomas managed to spin down the rapids about 50 feet from the boats before a guide had to swmi after him downriver.
It was our first time doing sledging, and hopefully not our last. Definately more exhilerating than rafting (even though we didn't get to do the 7m falls) and after 2 minutes of safety skills, off we set downriver with what amounted to plastic steering wheels! It was very hard work to swim against the currents, and to time your movements to the rapids, but we had a fantastic time, especially when we got to surf against
Rafting: 7m Falls.
...GONE!...look closely to spot the yellow helmets through the spray!the falls...well.... Thomas had a great time, I just kept getting flushed out by the rapids and nearly drowning on 3 occasions...but it didn't stop me from trying! Needless to say, our bodies were in severe pain the following day, and I spent most of it recovering in the natural hot pool in the hostel!
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anonymous
non-member comment
oh wow!!!