White Water's, Dude

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Up early and off to Turangi at the southern end of lake Taupo. The drive reminded Cas and I of the Amalfi coast road near Naples. We were booked in for a morning of high octane white water rafting and we were all very excited. Our guide was a long haired surfer type whom Ed thought was particularly cool and the coolness only deepened as he called Ed 'dude' throughout the entire journey.
We shared our raft with three other people and off we set down the Tongariro River, a two hour journey down 55+ rapids and an amazing gorge that had cut its path through 60ft of pumice rock. The shrieks of fun from the kids was brilliant to hear: strangely, this seemed loudest when Cas and I got a face full of cold water?
Ed was stationed beside the guide at the back of the rapid and he would always ask 'what's the next rapid called?'. Each rapid had a name given by the first person to raft it: Ed liked Cheesegater, Minefield and One Tree Hill and Hat liked Ginger Drop, Pinball and Grandad's Green Undies.
At the very last stretch Ed found himself in the water, courtesy of a little nudge from the guide, he took it as a good sport and then we reeled him back in.
According to the kids, the white water rafting ranked up there with dune buggying as the highlights so far. We think they might have a taste for adrenalin sports.

We had a fab lunch in Turangi before taking the two hour drive heading towards Napier on the East coast. Our destination was Glenfalls DOC campsite on the banks of the Mohaku River. It was the most scenic site so far; a flat meadow, green hills, sandy banks and a wide blue river.

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