Okay, so yesterday was one of my biggest days Down Under. The only 2 things left on my bucket list prior to this trip were a trip to Australia & New Zealand and white water rafting. Yesterday, I took the plunge (literally and figuratively) and rafted the Shotover River outside of Queenstown. This excursion has rapids rated 4-5 on a 5 star scale. They offer an excursion of a more placid river where the rapids rate 2-3 on the 5 star scale, but I figured since this might be the only time I do this, why not go for the gusto?
It was a 2-hour river excursion with 7 sets of rapids. And the 45-minute trip to the starting point was on Skippers Canyon Road, the 13th most dangerous road in the world. A few of the people on our van of 14 who were afraid of heights had a very difficult time on the drive down to the river. They looked quite nauseated and could not look out the window at the unbelievable straight down drops of thousands of feet, just inches from the wheels of the van. And there are no guard rails, whatsoever.
The first hour or so of the rafting went quite well- exciting, but not too terribly scary. The problem with white water rafting is that it’s quite a lot of fun until it isn’t. And when that happens, something has gone wrong, and it’s scary as shit.
Our first issue was when our raft of 6 people plus the guide got stuck sideways between rocks. I was on the right side, which was the submerged side. A really nice, young Irish guy named Brian who was 6 foot 2 inches was on top of me since he slid to our side when we went vertical. Normally, I would consider having a handsome, strapping Irish guy on top of me quite an exciting adventure in and of itself. However, in this case, Brian’s weight was forcing me almost entirely under the water. We were only stuck for about about 15 seconds, but let me tell you, those 15 seconds felt like forever.
We managed the next set of rapids with no problem. And then came the real trauma. There were 4 rafts all together (and they all keep in eyesight of one another for safety reasons). In the next set of very deep, narrow rapids, the first raft dumped over. Then we did. There were 12 people floundering in very rushing, deep rapids. Myself and one other woman got stuck on the opposite side of everyone else, and we were both in whirlpools. It was my biggest fear about rafting come true. I tried several times to swim out of the whirlpool, but it dragged me back each time. I’m not a strong swimmer and was feeling quite exhausted. Finally, a safety/rescue guy in a kayak was able to get close enough to hold out a paddle towards me and I used every ounce of strength I could to swim close enough to him to grab it. Once he had me, He “captured” the other woman and dragged us about about 30 feet down river to where it was calmer and shallower and 3 of the boats were then stationed, side by side.
In all honesty, I was trembling and so exhausted it was very hard to breathe. I had gashed my thumb quite deeply and it was bleeding and the other woman had a huge welt above her left eye. We both had to fill out paperwork when the excursion was over stating that we chose not to get medical attention.
I’m glad I did it. And I’m glad it didn’t turn out worse. Will I do it again? Likely not, unless I get in better shape and actually work out my flabby arms. I did enjoy it tremendously until, as I said, the point that I didn’t.
I got back to the lodge mid-afternoon and took a hot shower. It was 40 degrees while we were rafting and even with the wet suits on, it was freezing during the time I was in the water. I then had a lovely dinner at the Skyline Restaurant, overlooking the city. I had 2 glasses of wine with dinner. Afterwards, I went to the Minus 5 Ice Bar and had a cocktail and a shot. Hey, it was the first time in a very long time that I actually NEEDED a drink. And I felt like I deserved it. Another thing checked off the bucket list, and thankfully, it wasn’t yet my time to kick it. :)
In the photo of me in the rubber band (aka wet suit) I’m missing about half the outfit still– the wet suit jacket, the helmet and the life vest. We couldn’t take our phones beyond this point to where we got our other gear. In the fourth photo you will see a glare. That’s because I took this photo from my dinner table. Nice view for dinner!