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Published: August 8th 2007
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Today we left Taupo, but the first mission was to send a huge parcel of crap back home, the stuff you collect on your travels that you don't want to chuck but certainly don't want to carry around in your small-ish bag for the next 3 months. I also managed to watch my bungee DVD in the hostel which made my stomach lurch; I still can't believe I did that.
We were only on the bus for a very short time as Rotorua is very close to Taupo.
Our first stop as always, after dumping bags in the hostel was the I centre, this time situated handily next to our hostel. So after a quick bite to eat we piled into the free shuttle that took us to the meeting point for our rafting. It was no coincidence that the pick up place was also the place of Zorbing and Swoop. If you are not aware of these two things: The first, Zorbing, is where you get inside a giant hamster ball and get rolled down a hill. You can do this alone, with your mate or with the added bonus of water inside the ball. Liz and
Sarah did this, the pics are hilarious. I on the other hand did the Swoop as it appealed to my free fall nature. Swoop involved getting into a giant sleeping bag, hauled up on a crain to a huge height and while you are facing he ground, hovering at god knows how high, you hit a rip cord and plummet face first towards the floor, Excellent!!!!
After all this fun, we were met by the raft about team who took us to get suited and booted. This was Liz and my first time at rafting. We had a 10 minute training session which was filled with horrifying 'what to do if' procedures that scared the pants off me. We were then told we were going down a 7ft waterfall the only raftable one in the world and the only grade 5 bit of the rapids- I think 'What now' was my only reaction, I really didn't think that was any kind of good idea for beginners!!
So reluctantly with my stomach in my mouth I took my end of the raft and we headed out.
We began rafting in unison, I was at the
front with another girl my size and we were in charge of setting the rhythm of the rowing. Then came the first mini water fall. We stopped before it to go over what we needed to do and then launched off, rowing until the last point and then ducking inside the boat as we crashed down over the fall. It was a few seconds before I could breathe due to the shock of the cold water but I was alive and we didn't turn over but immediately we were back on the sides of the raft rowing. I was now dreading the 7ft waterfall more than every.
Unfortunately that was the next bit. We rafted right up until the last point and then stopped at the side of the river to go over procedure again. Well there was no getting out of it so I just braced my self. We pushed off and rowed for a few seconds before the call came form the back to get down and I got down, praying with all my mite that this was going to end happily. We were all told to smile as we went over as there was a
guy with a camera taking our pic so I obeyed but that was probably my down fall. After what seemed like forever, we hit the spray and crashed hard into the churning water at the bottom, getting a huge mouth full of the stuff. I wasn't sure at first if we were turning over as the raft was full of water but the our heads bobbed up and the raft too as we moved away from the bottom of the fall in one peace. Bloody Awesome!!
There were four other boats to come over after us, we were the first but unfortunately the boat of Koreans was not as lucky and they all went into the soup and it was our job to rescue the flying ores and very wet men.
The rest of the rafting was brilliant including the bit where we surfed a rapid, unfortunately, because I was at the front, this was the only part where I seriously nearly came out of the raft (see pics on slide show) but it made the others laugh.
After we were all packed like sardines into a tiny van and taken back to the
rafting base where we picked up our photos and headed back to the Hostel to dry off.
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