White Water rafting nearly broke us but we are in one piece (and absolutely knackered)

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We got up early and got set to go rafting and were kindly picked up by the NaluBale Rafting team from the campsite. They are the #1 Rafting company on the Nile and have the best safety record, this will become more important later – want to be clear they were excellent and professional, it was the epic water that was the issue!

When we learned it was just the four of us and they would be putting two guides in our raft, have 4 safety kayakers and a safety boat with us we should perhaps got a sense of how serious what we were doing was. When we then had a 40 minute safety briefing and then practiced drills for how to handle an overturned raft we should have thought this was serious, but we just thought it would be fun.

I have been rafting in Nepal, US and the might Zambesi in Zimbabwe and I can say with confidence that the white water on the Nile was by far the most epic water I’ve been on. We did a number of Grade 5 rapids and grade 4 rapids and had to get out and walk around a grade 6 that even the guides wouldn’t do. We lost the guide on one rapid as he got thrown out the boat and at one point one of the safety kayakers came out.

We had a lot of fun, some more in hindsight than at the time. I won’t bore you with all the details but there was one called “Chop Suey” and what the guides didn’t say beforehand was they can’t do it without flip the boat on it. The boat went over and I went down and got held under so long I was getting quite distressed about drowning (Toby similar). I then came up and hit the boat with one eye (that I then couldn’t see out of properly for an hour) and eventually got a breath. I don’t think Alain or Dan faired much better.

After that we asked them what the likelihood of flipping the boat was on each rapid and the answer was always 50%!,(MISSING) thankfully other than getting very wet and at one point the entire raft being under water we didn’t flip again.

A little later when the water calmed we got to play on boogie boards with flippers on a standing wave. It was great fun and we all managed to surf it but whenever we got thrown off we then had to navigate rocks and fast water and despite 4 safety kayaks and a man with a throw line at one point Alain got himself in a bit of a pickle stuck on a rock and it took a while for them to get him out. Needless to say Alain had had enough of surfing at that point.

After our last rapid they put us all in the water but then we all had to swim about 500m to the shore to get out and by that point we were tired, mostly burned, a little frazzled and absolutely exhausted. They put on a great lunch for us and then we headed back to the campsite to collapse in a heap and have a swim in the lovely pool.

I suspect it will be an early night, we all ache. The sum total of injuries are:

· Nick – the arm I broke is somewhat tender from the biggest workout since it happened

· Dan – Bloody nose and a significant case of sun burn

· Toby – Wrenched a shoulder and mild case of sunburn

· Alain – Drank most of the Nile, learned he didn’t like surfing in white water, light burning on the knees



(PHOTOS WILL FOLLOW – one of the kayakers was also our photographers and has captured our flip in great fashion. Will get photos in due course and share)

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