Quuenstown - White water Rafting!!!

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What a good night sleep! I slept in the car as i wanted to be warm and it worked! Wahoo! Got an exciting day ahead today as we were going WHite Water Rafting!!! We were both up early, around 8.30, had breakfast and then the next thing we know it was 11am!!! Mad. We had made sandwiches to take with us and have in town before going. We got into town around 12.15 so had a walk along the river front, a look around the shops and stopped in a small park to have lunch. We went to the office at 1pm to check in. Once everyone had arrived we jumped on the bus and went 10mins up the road to the main centre. There we were given our wetsuits, shoes, jackets and helmets, oh and our life-jackets! we all felt so uncomfortable and it was getting warm in the sun! But we all had to get back on the bus to be taken up river, we drove another 45 mins. Well.....the drive there was more terrifing than the rafting itself! The dirt road goes through the mountains and is the old miners road, how the hell we didn't drop down the cliff face i don't know! And we were pulling a trailer with all the boats on!
When we arrived we were put into small groups of 6 and given wooden padles. We met our guide Paul, had a photo taken, then away we went! The river was very low, the best time to come is in December and January as the snow is melting. The river hight ranges from 8 - 70 and we were at a 9! But as they said, it was good value for money as it took 2hrs1/2 instead of 50mins when the water is high to get down the river! On the w3ay down we got to see a guy jump from the swing bungie above the river, Paul also jumped out to grab and handfull of wild thyme! He was quite funny! It grows like a weed here, everywhere you look it's there! Paul talked about all the mining here, it stopped in 1992 so not long ago, and was the 2nd largest gold producing river in the world! They had to stop as they were polluting the Shotover River. There are still many remains everywhere, old machinery and huts. We even got to see wild goats too!!
When we got to the rapids it was so much fun. I thought it would scare me but i knew what to do now in case i fell out so i felt safer. We had to be more skillfull in the low water as so many more rocks were exposed. It was great fun! Chris and i nearly fell out twice from going sideways up some rocks and further down the river we went into the cliff with a bit of a bump and one of the other guys on the boat fell out! He didn't hold on in time!
Just before the end we went through a tunnel ( man-mae ) and down the last rapid, where we had our photos taken. We got out of the boat and watched everyone else come down this one ( this is where we all got very wet! ) and also saw a couple of the jet boats as they turned around to go back down the river.
We jumped back into our boat, got to the end, and went to the office. We got back around 5.30pm, got changed, at last out of the wet suits! and had a fee coffee and a biscuit. We then jumped back on the bus and back into Queenstown, we were so tired!
We walked back to the car and went back to the campsite. We cooked honey & mustard chicken with rice as a treat after a long day! Jess, Jen and Stephan ( an english guy working and living here ) came in a little later, caught up on their day, watched some tv and got to bed too late again! But i was sleeping in the car again so at least i knew i would be warm...the normal cold weather really didn't bother Chris - so unfare!!!!

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